Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1998 This edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Copyright © Barbara Erskine 1998

Maps and chapter head illustrations by Rex Nicholls

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © Gary Ombler/Getty Images (woman); Stuart Brill/Trevillion Images (chapel with mist); John James/Alamy (grave stone)

Barbara Erskine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007288632

Ebook Edition © March 2016 ISBN: 9780007320974

Version: 2017-09-08

Epigraph

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The Book of Common Prayer

He who has once seen a ghost is never again as though he had not seen a ghost.

Cardinal John Henry Newman, 1870

God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

I John 1,5

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Map

Note

Part One

Chapter One: The Present Day

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Part Two

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Five

Chapter Thirty Six

Chapter Thirty Seven

Chapter Thirty Eight

Chapter Thirty Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty One

Chapter Forty Two

Chapter Forty Three

Chapter Forty Four

Chapter Forty Five

Chapter Forty Six

Chapter Forty Seven

Chapter Forty Eight

Chapter Forty Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty One

Chapter Fifty Two

Chapter Fifty Three

Chapter Fifty Four

Chapter Fifty Five

Chapter Fifty Six

Chapter Fifty Seven

Chapter Fifty Eight

Chapter Fifty Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty One

Chapter Sixty Two

Chapter Sixty Three

Chapter Sixty Four

Chapter Sixty Five

Chapter Sixty Six

Chapter Sixty Seven

Chapter Sixty Eight

Chapter Sixty Nine

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy One

Chapter Seventy Two

Chapter Seventy Three

Chapter Seventy Four

Chapter Seventy Five

Chapter Seventy Six

Chapter Seventy Seven

Chapter Seventy Eight

Chapter Seventy Nine

Chapter Eighty

Chapter Eighty One

Chapter Eighty Two

Chapter Eighty Three

Chapter Eighty Four

Chapter Eighty Five

Chapter Eighty Six

Chapter Eighty Seven

Chapter Eighty Eight

Chapter Eighty Nine

Chapter Ninety

Chapter Ninety One

Chapter Ninety Two

Chapter Ninety Three

Chapter Ninety Four

Chapter Ninety Five

Chapter Ninety Six

Chapter Ninety Seven

Chapter Ninety Eight

Chapter Ninety Nine

Chapter Hundred

Chapter Hundred and One

Chapter Hundred and Two

Chapter Hundred and Three

Chapter Hundred and Four

Chapter Hundred and Five

Chapter Hundred and Six

Chapter Hundred and Seven

Chapter Hundred and Eight

Chapter Hundred and Nine

Chapter Hundred and Ten

Chapter Hundred and Eleven

Chapter Hundred and Twelve

Chapter Hundred and Thirteen

Chapter Hundred and Fourteen

Chapter Hundred and Fifteen

Chapter Hundred and Sixteen

Chapter Hundred and Seventeen

Chapter Hundred and Eighteen

Chapter Hundred and Nineteen

Chapter Hundred and Twenty

Chapter Hundred and Twenty One

Author’s Note

Keep Reading Barbara Erskine’s Novels

Keep Reading Sleeper’s Castle

About the Author

Also by Barbara Erskine

About the Publisher

Map

Note

Matthew Hopkins was, of course, a real man and Manningtree and Mistley are real places. But this story is fiction. The parish about which I write does not exist. Neither does Mike’s church, rectory or street. Neither does the lane where Emma lives, nor is there a surgery where I have put one.

The old churchyard appears on maps and in guidebooks, but is now private land. The real church at Mistley does not appear.

Present darkness LAMMAS

Lightning was flickering over the low Suffolk hills and thunder rumbled in the distance, louder this time. Bill Standing glanced up at the sky where the clouds piled threateningly one on the other, black on purple above the land. He hunched his shoulders and walked on.

He had come out here to think, to clear his head and listen to whatever it was that was battering at his brain, trying to make itself heard. The tide was nearly high, the broad estuary a carpet of white-topped waves hurling themselves inland off the sea. Above his head a gull circled, letting out a wild, mournful cry, then it turned and flew away towards the coming darkness. Bill watched it go through narrowed eyes, feeling the wind on his face. The thunder was louder now and one by one the first heavy drops of rain were beginning to fall. It was early afternoon but it felt like night. Behind him the town was closing down ahead of the storm. He could feel it waiting, watching, bracing itself for what was to come.

His unease was not only caused by the impending storm. There was something else in the air and it scared him – scared him more than anything, in all his eighty-six years, had scared him before.

The old evil there beneath the surface was awakening. It would take very little to set it free. A lightning bolt into the river, a clap of thunder up on the heath, a flash of fire in the furze bushes on the hill and the dark would rise again and envelop the shore, the town, the whole peninsula.

He had known it would happen one day. His father had told him, and his father’s father had known it before him. Why now, he didn’t know yet, but there was no one left to stop it.

He pulled the collar of his coat up round his ears and looked up at the sky which had grown yet darker. He knew what to do, of course. More or less. But he was an old man, and alone. Were there others out there who could help him? He frowned unhappily, his weather-beaten face wrinkling into deep folds and canyons. If there were, he hadn’t seen them yet. What he had seen were signs of trouble, like the blue flames licking from tussock to tussock down on the marsh, fairy sparks, they called them, the sign of danger to come like the black mist hanging on the horizon far out to sea. Darkness long laid to rest was threatening to stir as it had after the Reformation, when the priests who knew how to mediate the dark were overthrown. Hundreds of years before that the evil had come from across the sea; native and Roman gods, and the Christian alike had been vanquished before it as it sucked black energy from this wild, mysterious borderland between sea and shore. For aeons it had lain sleeping, but now he could feel it growing restless. He remembered the words, the ceremonies, to contain it, but did he have the power?

Another clap of thunder echoed over the water and he jumped. It was drifting closer on the wind, circling the town. Lightning flickered behind as well as in front of him now and it was growing darker still, as though the whole world were hiding from the light.

Past darkness AUTUMN 1644

The room was dark and he could see nothing, but he could hear the creature in the corner, snuffling quietly to itself. He lay quite still in the high bed, staring up towards the tester he could not see, wishing he had not drawn the curtain so close around him. He was sweating profusely, his hands gripping the sheet, holding it tightly up against his chin.

Where was it? He hardly dared blink his eyes. It had moved. He could hear the scrape of claws against the boards.

Don’t stir.

Don’t even breathe.

It doesn’t realise you’re here.

If only his heart would stop pounding so loudly against his chest. The animal must be able to hear him, smell the sour fear. Inch by inch he edged up against the pillows away from the sound. There was a crack in the bed curtains now, as the sheet caught against the rough tapestry and he could see a faint line of light from the window shutters. It was nearly dawn.

Sweet Jesu, make it go away.

Another sound from the corner of the room sent a fresh sheen of sweat across his shoulder blades. There was a grunt and the sharp crunch of teeth on bone. Dear Lord, the creature had caught something. It was eating it, there, in his bedroom, taunting him. He could smell blood, smell the rank breath, the rotting teeth, he could almost see its small red, evil, eyes.

How had it got in?

He frowned. He could remember closing the door and sliding the bolt. He could remember barring the shutters. Or had he? He glanced towards the tell-tale strip of pale light. He had felt so ill as he climbed the narrow stairs the night before, the fever once again clamping its sweaty hold over his shoulders. He had fallen on the bed, racked with coughing, too tired even to pull off his bucket-top boots. He remembered that. He moved his foot slightly. No. It was bare. He must have kicked off the soft leather boots and removed his breeches and stockings before crawling under the bed covers.

Outside, the darkness lifted perceptibly. The stars and the quarter moon, hanging low over the hill behind his house, began to fade. The birds were waking. First one tentative call, then another, rang out in the cold garden.

His throat spasmed. He was going to cough again. He mustn’t. He mustn’t make a sound. He groped blindly for a kerchief, for the sheet, the pillow, anything to smother the noise. If he coughed, the creature would know he was there and turn its attention to him. He could feel the cough building, the tightness in his chest, the agony in his throat. His terror was overwhelming.

As the first cough exploded from him, he heard himself scream. He leaned over towards the bedside table and snatched the dagger that lay there, ready, thrusting it wildly in front of him as the bear turned to stare straight between the bed curtains into his eyes. For a moment they exchanged a long thoughtful glance, then slowly the bear rose to its feet.

Downstairs the maid heard his frantic shouting as she knelt to lay the fire. She glanced up and shook her head. Master Hopkins must be having another of his nightmares. She paused for a moment, listening, then she turned back to the fire.

Upstairs, at the first sound of the coughing, the tabby cat dropped her half-eaten mouse and fled from the room, leaving a small pile of bloody entrails in the corner as she leaped for the window, pushed through the unfastened shutters and vanished into the cold dawn.

In the bed, his fear drained away as swiftly as it had come and in its place he felt rage. Rage such as he had never felt before. The women who had caused him to feel such fear would pay and pay dearly for their foul conspiracy. And he knew who they were, for they were on his list. The Devil’s List.

Part One

1 The present day
AUGUST

The London air was coppery, metallic on the tongue, heavy with traffic fumes and sunlight. Emma Dickson climbed out of the cab, handed over a note and glanced at her wristwatch, all part of the same flowing movement.

The cabby made a great show of diving into his money bag for change. Mean cow. Only three quid from twenty. She could afford to give him the tip. He glanced at her and in spite of himself his face softened. A bit of all right. Black dress. Gorgeous legs. Slim arms. Nice hair. Good make up. Business lady, but would tart up nicely. He handed her the change. She took it, hesitated, then handed it back. ‘OK. You keep it.’ She grinned at him as though she were aware of every stage of his thought processes. ‘You got me here on time. Just.’

He watched as she turned across the pavement and climbed the steps towards the door. Devonshire Place. An expensive doctor, probably. He found himself hoping, as he pulled away from the kerb, that she wasn’t ill.

The shiny black door with gold knocker and nameplate opened to her ring and she disappeared inside, grateful for the coolness of the hall after the blazing heat of the street outside. It was Friday. She had taken the afternoon off to visit the dentist, then she was going home to stand under a cold shower before starting to organise the evening’s dinner party.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Dickson.’ The receptionist opened the door of the waiting room and ushered her in. ‘Mr Forbes won’t keep you long.’

There was no one else in the large elegant room. Sofas and easy chairs stood somewhat formally round the walls, two huge flower arrangements faced each other at opposite ends of the room and on the large low central table several piles of magazines lay, neatly squared, waiting to beguile her while she waited. Automatically she glanced at her watch. It was hard to relax, to slow down. It had been a hectic morning; she had been on the phone since eight a.m. There had been no time for lunch. For one of the senior fund managers for Spencer Flight, Jordan of Throckmorton Street, there very seldom was. To find she had to wait for her appointment was almost more than she could bear. Taking a deep breath she threw her bag on the largest sofa and picking up a magazine at random she flopped down and kicked off her shoes.

She had to learn to slow down; to relax. She wasn’t even sure any more that she was still enjoying the frenetic lifestyle in which up to now she had revelled. With a long slow sigh she stretched out the long legs the taxi driver had so much admired, opened the magazine and glanced at it casually.

She had picked up a copy of Country Life. She flipped without much interest through page after page of house advertisements. Mansions and manor houses, even castles, all taken from their best angle, primped, air brushed, seductively enticing. Improbable. But they would all turn out to be someone’s dream. Someone who had had the time to stop to consider whether the place they lived was right for them; whether they were happy, whether they should move on.

She turned another page, about to throw down the magazine, then she frowned. She sat up sharply, swung her legs to the floor and sat, staring at the picture in front of her. There were four houses on the page, all in Essex and Suffolk, all smaller than those through which she had been idly leafing. It was the one on the top right hand corner of the page that held her attention. She frowned, looking at it more closely. It was a house she knew.

She read the details with a frown.

15th century listed farmhouse withsmall commercial herb nursery.3 bedrooms, 2 reception.Large farmhouse kitchen.

Garage. Offices. 3 acres.

The house was pretty, colour-washed with exposed beams, an uneven roof, half tiled, half thatched, an oak front door surrounded by the statutory roses. She looked quickly at the other houses on the page. They too were pretty. In fact one was a great deal prettier, but this one was special. Near Manningtree, the details said. North Essex. Minutes from the picturesque River Stour.

It was Liza’s.

‘Miss Dickson?’ It was the second time the receptionist had called her name. ‘Mr Forbes is ready for you.’

She jumped almost guiltily. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.’ Fumbling inelegantly for her shoes she rose to her feet, still holding the magazine.

‘Shall I?’ The receptionist held out her hand, ever helpful, ready to replace it on the pile.

Emma shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I need to keep it. This house –’ She looked up and saw irritation in the other woman’s face. Shrugging, she held it out, then changed her mind. ‘Do you mind if I tear out the page? It’s a house I know.’ She had done it before the woman could object, folding the shiny paper into her handbag and closing the fastener firmly before turning towards the surgery.

The check-up was swift, followed by a change of room, change of chair, brisk polish from the hygienist and she was finished, standing once more on the doorstep staring down the dusty street. Two cabs cruised by in quick succession, glancing at her to see if she was a customer. She saw neither of them. She was still thinking about the cottage which as a child she had known as Liza’s.

Summer holidays away from London. Sailing on the Stour. Riding ponies round the paddock. Great-grandpa’s pipe. Great-grandma’s wonderful cakes. Walking the dogs round the country lanes. There had been all the time in the world, then. Aeons of it. They had walked past Liza’s several times each holidays, always very conscious of the cottage behind its hedge and the secrets it was supposed to hold. They had never gone in, never met the old lady who lived there and in her young mind little Emma had started to weave a fantasy about the place, in which that old lady – Liza – had featured as a character in an increasingly complicated fairy story. As an only child she was accustomed to making up stories in which she featured as the heroine, and this one was no exception. Her parents and great-grandparents had no idea about the story and the adventures which were going on in the little girl’s head, or the extent to which she missed those holidays when her great-grandparents, too elderly to keep up the big country house, had sold up and moved away. She had never gone back to the area.

She descended the steps into Devonshire Place and turned south, walking slowly, aware of the sun’s heat reflecting off the pavement and the house fronts. She was tired and hot and she wanted a cold drink. Reaching Weymouth Street she paused, waiting for the lights to change, then she walked on. The torn page was tucked into the zipped pocket in her bag. There was plenty of time to look at it again when she reached home but she realised suddenly that she couldn’t wait that long. The piece of paper was burning a hole in the bag! She stopped in her tracks and fumbled for it. A business man in a dark suit who had been following immediately behind her almost walked into her. He side-stepped past her, stared for a moment and walked on. Two workmen carrying an old sink out of the front door of one of the elegant houses on the corner edged past her and threw the sink into a skip which had been parked against the kerb. She didn’t notice the cloud of dust and plaster fragments which flew up as the ancient piece of plumbing crashed into the mess of rubbish. She was staring at the picture. When she did look up again she was ready to find a cab.

‘Ma?’ She pushed open the door of the small bookshop off the Gloucester Road, immediately spotting her mother standing by the till. The shop was empty but for a woman with two small children. Peggy Dickson raised her hand. She smiled a welcome then turned back to her customers, slotting two books deftly into a bag and handing it to the smallest child. When they finally left the shop she groaned. ‘I thought they’d never go. It took that woman twenty-five minutes to choose those books. Those poor little kids, they are going to equate bookshops with boredom, dehydration, the need to pee and starvation, in that order, for the rest of their lives!’

Emma laughed. ‘Nonsense, Ma. They were thrilled with their books. That little boy was an academic in the making, if ever I saw one.’

‘Maybe.’ Peggy sighed with exhaustion. An attractive woman in her early sixties, she resembled her daughter in bone structure alone. Their eyes and hair were quite different – Peggy’s hair had once been blonde, whilst her daughter’s was dark; the blonde was now the slightest hint highlighted into the smartly cut grey – but the timbre of their voices was similar. Low. Musical. Elegant.

‘So, my darling, what on earth are you doing outside that temple to Mammon you call an office?’

Emma smiled. ‘I took the afternoon off. It’s very quiet at the moment as it’s August. Everyone is out of the City. I’ve been having a check up at the dentist and I’m on my way to Sainsbury’s. We’ve got Piers’s boss and his wife coming to supper.’ She made a face. ‘Then, I hope, a long peaceful weekend! Do you and Dan want to come over for a drink some time?’

Peggy shrugged. ‘Can we let you know? I’m working tomorrow – at least till lunchtime. I’ll close up if no one comes in, but I don’t know what Dan’s plans are.’

Emma’s father had died in 1977 when she was still a child. Her mother’s toyboy lover – only six months younger than Peggy, but neither of them could resist joking about the age difference – was the best thing that had happened in Peggy’s life for a long time.

Emma fished in her bag again and produced the page from Country Life. ‘Ma, the reason I came over was to show you this. Does this house mean anything to you? Do you recognise it?’

Peggy reached for her spectacles and examined the picture closely. ‘I don’t think so. Why? You’re not thinking of buying a country cottage?’

‘No.’ Emma grimaced. ‘Piers would never hear of it. ‘No. It’s just –’ She hesitated and her face grew sombre. ‘I saw this at the dentist. Don’t you remember? Near where Great-granny lived at Mistley. I’m sure it is.’

Peggy squinted at the page again. ‘We did spend a lot of time there when you were little.’ She chewed her lip thoughtfully, holding the paper closer to her nose. ‘Wait a minute. Perhaps I do remember it now I come to think of it: Liza’s. You think it’s Liza’s? Are you sure, darling? There must be a million cottages that look just like that one. Anyway, it says it’s a farmhouse.’ She took off her glasses and, putting down the page she surveyed Emma’s face, frowning.

Emma nodded. ‘I’m pretty sure it is. I loved that house so much I’d recognise it anywhere.’

Peggy nodded. ‘I do remember now. You used to peer through the hedge and make up stories about that wonderful old lady who lived there. Liza, presumably. They were lovely times, weren’t they. Those holidays seemed to go on forever.’

‘Long, sunlit summers.’ Emma nodded.

Before Daddy died.

Neither of them voiced that last thought, but both were thinking it.

‘Wouldn’t it be strange if it was the same house?’ Peggy put her glasses back on, squinting. ‘It’s very pretty. I’m not surprised you’re tempted. You are tempted, aren’t you?’ She looked up and surveyed Emma’s face shrewdly.

Emma nodded. Somewhere deep inside an idea had taken root.

‘Is this interest a sign you’re feeling like settling down at last? Is it possible, sweetheart, are you feeling broody?’ Peggy surveyed Emma’s face for a moment, then she shook her head. ‘Well, maybe that’s for the best. Not till you’re sure about Piers. And you’re not. Are you?’

Emma frowned. ‘I love Piers, Ma. I wouldn’t do anything unless he agreed.’

‘No?’ Peggy raised an eyebrow. ‘He won’t agree to this, Em. I can tell you that right now!’

2

Piers stood under the shower for a full five minutes before he stepped out and reached for the towel. He had been expecting Emma to be there when he arrived home from his office but the door had been double-locked, the flat, on the top floor of the converted house at the end of Cornwall Gardens, empty but for two loudly complaining cats. He stopped to give each a brief hello before checking the fridge for dinner party supplies. She couldn’t have forgotten that Derek and Sue were coming over, surely. Hadn’t she said she was taking the afternoon off? Pulling on some cool trousers and an open-necked shirt he surveyed himself for a second in the mirror in their bedroom, checking out his tall lanky figure, smart haircut, tanned skin – even in casual gear he looked cool and sophisticated – before he went into the living room and glanced round. It was tidy as always, a full array of drinks on the top of the low bookcase in the corner. The pale cream sofas, the linen curtains and the wood floor gave just the right impression. Expensive. Elegant. Comfortable. Two young, well youngish, executives with perfect taste. He walked across to the French doors and reached up to the hiding place behind the curtain for the Chubb key, hanging from its little hook. Unlocking the doors he pulled them open and stepped out onto the roof garden. This was Emma’s very own paradise. She had created a little heaven from a sooty expanse between four ugly chimneys. Italian earthenware pots, small trees, roses, honeysuckle, herbs – her special passion – the unexpected riot of colour and sweet scents never failed to take his breath away. Emma’s love for gardening and her indelibly green fingers were one of the unexpected sides to her character which he could never quite reconcile with her astute business brain and the sophisticated lifestyle she shared with him. Closely followed by the two cats, he walked over to the wrought-iron table with its matching chairs and opened the large, bleached-linen parasol. Any moment now the sun would have disappeared behind the rooftops, but the parasol perfected the picture of elegance he so enjoyed up here. And on an evening like this where better to be than a rooftop garden?

‘Piers?’ Emma’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Sorry, darling. I got caught in horrendous queues in Sainsbury’s.’ She appeared at the French doors looking, as ever, a city animal, elegant and sophisticated and cool – the furthest one could imagine from a busy shopping queue, or a gardener. ‘I’ve got cold meat. Vichyssoise. Ciabatta. Smoked duck. Salmon. Salad. Strawberries and cream. It’ll take me five minutes.’ She greeted the two cats with a pat on each eager head, joined him under the parasol and held up her own face for a kiss. ‘Put the wine in the fridge. When will they be here?’

He felt obscurely irritated suddenly. She knew when they’d be there. Damn it, she had rung up and fixed it with Sue.

‘Unzip me?’ She turned in his arms just before his kiss landed on target, presenting him with the nape of her neck and the top of a long black zip. ‘I called in on Ma. I thought she and Dan might pop over and have a drink tomorrow.’ With a quick wriggle of her hips she shed the dress. Under it she was naked but for a pair of the skimpiest bikini briefs.

‘Em!’ In spite of himself he glanced round, shocked. He would never get used to this side of Emma. Unconventional. Provocative. Always teasing him.

‘No one can see! Not unless they’ve got binoculars and are standing on top of the power station chimneys!’ She tapped his lips with her finger. ‘Stuffy.’

‘I know.’ He knew he ought to laugh. But he was cross. He wanted her badly. But there wasn’t time. With a groan he ducked into the living room and went to rummage in the wine rack in the corner behind the kitchen door. ‘Dry Hills Sauvignon OK?’

‘The best! Lovely.’ She was still standing naked on the roof.

‘Em! They will be here in a minute.’

She glanced over her shoulder at him coquettishly, then she relented. ‘OK. I’ll jump in the shower. It will take ten seconds to dress.’ As she passed him she brought her hands to her hips briefly and gave a quick shimmy. ‘Not bad for a thirty-something, eh? And look at the teeth!’ She ducked out of reach and ran to the bathroom. In ten minutes rather than seconds she was dressed, her hair brushed, a quick skim of colour on lips and eyelids and she was ready, once again the cool calm City woman, fit partner for a potential director of Evans Waterman, one of the largest City broking houses.

In the event Derek and Sue were half an hour late. By the time they arrived the hors d’oeuvres were laid out on the wrought-iron table, the wine was chilled, the table was laid and the duck and the salad prepared, the duck locked securely away from the enthusiastic attention of the cats.

It was as they moved on to the coffee at the end of the meal that the subject of weekend cottages arose. ‘We have a place in Normandy, you know.’ Sue leaned back against the sofa cushions and crossed her ankles. ‘It would be lovely if you could both come over for a few days.’

Outside, the roof terrace was dark, lit by two shaded lights hidden amongst the flower pots. A gentle breeze wafted the smell of the hot London night into the window. Sue sipped at her coffee. The two cats were asleep on one of the deckchairs outside. ‘Have you ever thought of buying somewhere yourselves?’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

Piers and Emma spoke at the same moment and they all laughed.

‘Sounds like a fundamental difference of opinion,’ Derek commented as he reached for his brandy glass. As so often, he found himself wondering how Piers managed to hang on to this lovely spontaneous creature.

‘That’s because we haven’t discussed it yet.’ Emma climbed to her feet and went over to pick up her bag which was lying on the side table. ‘I saw something today which intrigued me so much, I want to go and see it.’ She found the folded page and brought it back to the sofa. ‘It’s a little farmhouse in Essex.’

‘Essex!’ Sue hooted. ‘Oh, my dear, I think you could do better than that.’ She held out her hand for the picture.

‘Essex is quite nice, actually,’ Derek put in mildly. He raised an eyebrow in his wife’s direction. ‘The Essex they joke about is in the south of the county, part of the greater London area. But if you go up to the north you have wonderful countryside and lovely villages and towns. Constable country. You’re miles and miles from London there. It’s very rural.’ He held out his hand for the magazine page which Sue had glanced at and dropped dismissively on the coffee table. ‘This one, is it?’ He tapped the photo. ‘It looks a lovely place. Perfect weekend material. Good sailing up there. Do you sail, Piers?’

Piers had risen to his feet. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said briskly. ‘Weekend cottages are not my thing, I’m afraid.’ He looked angry. ‘Emma knows that. I can think of nothing I would like less than pottering about “doing it myself”, mowing grass and being nice to hay-seed neighbours! I hate the country! I was stuck in deep country as a child and I couldn’t wait to get away. I can still remember my parents vegetating, telling me to go bird watching, trying to make me interested in nature, for God’s sake! I couldn’t wait to get away and I will never, never go back!’

There was a moment’s intense silence.

‘Oh, well!’ Emma forced herself to laugh. ‘There goes that idea!’ She took the cutting from Derek’s hand and, folding it, tucked it into her pocket. ‘More brandy, anyone?’

Derek and Sue left early – ‘It’s been a long week, old things, bed for us, I think,’ – but it was after midnight by the time Emma and Piers had stacked the dishwasher and carried two more brandies out onto the roof terrace.

‘Do you think they enjoyed it at all?’ Emma was staring out into the luminosity of the London night.

‘Yes, of course they did.’

‘They left a bit soon.’

‘Like Derek said, they were tired.’ He leaned his elbows on the parapet, rolling the glass between his hands. ‘Don’t worry about it. They have asked us to go to Normandy, don’t forget. And while you and Sue were brewing that second pot of coffee he told me it’s OK.’ He turned to her and she saw the triumph in his face. ‘I’m going to be asked to join the board.’

‘Oh Piers, I’m so glad. Why didn’t you tell me at once?’

‘I wanted to wait till we had a glass in our hand. I wanted us to drink to the future. My future and our future.’ He held her gaze for a moment. ‘And I wanted to tell you when we were on our own because I think we should get married, Em.’

For a moment she didn’t move, and he could read the conflicting emotions on her face as clearly as if she were speaking out loud. Elation – that first, at least – worry, doubt, excitement, caution, then that moment which he recognised so well when she withdrew inside herself, her eyes suddenly unfocused as though viewing the future on some mysterious invisible internal screen. He waited. It would only take seconds for her private computation to take place. Until she had done it, he had learned to wait.

He felt a warm pressure against his ankle. Max was circling his feet, purring. He bent to pick the cat up, tickling him under his chin. ‘Well?’ He glanced at Emma and grinned. ‘So far I am not overwhelmed by your enthusiasm.’

She smiled. Reaching forward, she gave him a quick kiss on the lips. ‘I love you, P. You know that. And I want to live with you forever and ever.’

‘I can feel a “but” coming.’

‘No. It’s just –’ She hesitated, then putting her glass down on the parapet beside him she reached into her pocket. ‘When we talked about country cottages earlier, you were pretty damning.’ She unfolded the cutting. ‘It didn’t sound to me as though there was any room for compromise.’ She reached out absent-mindedly and rubbed the cat’s ears. ‘We’ve never talked about the sort of future that marriage means, P. Kids. Gardens. A life beyond EC1.’

‘And why should we? That’s all for the future, surely. Nothing we have to think about yet. In the abstract, yes, I’d like kids one day. If you would.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve never had any sense that you are hearing the time-clock ticking, Em. My God, that’s years off, surely.’

She laughed. ‘Not so many. I’ve reached the dreaded thirties, don’t forget.’ She reached over for Max, who climbed into her arms and draped himself across her shoulder with a contented purr. ‘I want to go and see this cottage. This weekend.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ He snatched the cutting from her hand. ‘Em, this is silly. What is it with this place? You know we can’t go this weekend. I’m playing squash with David tomorrow. You’ve asked your mother and Dan over. I’ve got a report to write. We have a hundred and one things to do.’ He moved over to the lamp and held the cutting so he could see it more clearly. ‘Three acres. A commercial herb nursery for God’s sake, Em. This isn’t even a country cottage. It’s a business. Look, if you’re so keen on the idea of a cottage why don’t we go down to Sussex or somewhere and take a look. Or why not France? Now that’s an idea. Derek said property there is still a fantastic investment.’

‘I don’t want it as an investment.’ Letting the cat jump to the ground, she threw herself down on one of the cushioned chairs. ‘In fact, I don’t know that I want it at all.’ There was a sudden note of bewilderment in her voice. ‘I just want to go and see it. I remember it from when I was a child. It’s a cottage I used to dream about. I built a whole fantasy world around it. It means a lot to me, Piers, and if it’s on the market …’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s meant to be.’

He gave a short laugh. ‘Not for me, it isn’t. I told you what I think about the country.’

‘Well, I want to go and see it at least. As soon as possible. Tomorrow. I’m going to ring the agent first thing.’

‘Well, if you do go, you go without me.’ He threw the cutting down on her lap. ‘The place has probably gone anyway. Did you see the date at the bottom of the page? The magazine was three weeks old.’

3

For a long time Emma lay awake listening to Piers’s even breathing. They had tried to patch things up; to paper over the awkwardness; but it hadn’t worked. The night seemed to have grown chilly suddenly and going inside they had closed the windows and drifted, apart, towards the bedroom. When Emma had emerged from her long soak in the bath, Piers was sound asleep.

It was impossible not to toss and turn, and after what seemed like an interminable attempt to relax and follow suit Emma got up and walked through into the kitchen. Two alert pairs of eyes watched her from the kitchen table.

‘You know you’re not supposed to sit there,’ she commented half-heartedly, but she made no attempt to move them. Without bothering to turn on the main lights she opened the fridge door. The interior light illuminated the kitchen, filling it with a subdued eerie glow as she poured herself a glass of iced spring water. Slamming the door shut again, she walked on in the semi-darkness into the living room. The faint echoes of the evening were still there. The richness of wine and coffee, of Sue’s scent, the sharp aroma of brandy from the glass Piers had put down on the low table as he walked past on his way to bed.

Emma threw herself down on the sofa and closed her eyes. The curtains were open and a faint light seeped into the room outlining the furniture, reflecting flatly from the cut-glass bowl of roses on the table. Two black shadows padded silently from the kitchen and leaped lightly onto the sofa back to sit close to her, like bookends in the silence of the room.

She sighed and closed her eyes.

In her dream it was the year of Our Lord, 1646. The cottage was very small, the rooms dark, but the garden was bright and neat, a riot of colour. She stood by the gate, her back to the church, staring round, and she knew she was smiling. Hollyhocks and mallow crowded the beds with roses and honeysuckle vying for position on the front wall. She could feel the sun hot on her back as she pushed open the gate and walked up the path. She knew she ought to knock, but the front door was open and she ducked inside.

‘Liza? Where are you?’ She heard her own voice without surprise. ‘Liza? I’ve brought you some pasties from my father’s kitchens.’ She had a basket on her arm, she realised suddenly, the food inside succulent and still warm beneath a white linen napkin. She put it down on the table and went to the foot of the narrow steep staircase. ‘Liza? Are you up there?’

The house was silent. The only sound came from the sudden piping calls of the young swallows in their nests hanging under the untidy thatch.

She ran up the stairs, feeling suddenly anxious, and peered round the room. The small box bed was empty, the patchwork cover neatly spread across it. A coffer chest in the corner was the only other furniture.

‘Liza?’ She ran downstairs again, very conscious of the emptiness of the house. ‘Liza, where are you?’

Outside there wasn’t a breath of wind. The heat was overwhelming. Humid. Uncomfortable. The swallows were silent now. Nothing moved. She tiptoed along the path and peered round the corner to the patch where Liza grew some of her herbs. She had thyme there, and rosemary. Vervain. Cinquefoil. St John’s Wort. Elecampane. Horehound. A basket lay on the ground nearby and a pair of silver scissors. Emma bent and picked them up. ‘Liza?’ Her voice sounded strangely muted out here. And it echoed as if coming from a long way away. There was a piece of green ribbon tied around the mulberry tree. She stared at it for a long time, then slowly she turned back towards the gate. From the lane she could see down towards the blue waters of the estuary in the distance. The tide was in. Two boats were sailing in towards the shore. She stopped to watch them for a moment; only when she raised her hand to her face to brush away a tear did she realise she was crying.

When Emma woke, wondering where she was, she found her cheeks still wet with tears. By the time she had fallen asleep again her mind was made up. She would go and see the cottage in the morning and if Piers didn’t want to go with her then she would go alone.

4

Saturday

Mike Sinclair, dressed in an open-necked shirt and jeans, was standing in the kitchen of his rectory gazing down at the toaster, watching the red elements slowly browning the flabby white slices he had extracted from the bag of Co-op bread his cleaning lady had bought for him two days before. He sighed. He must make time to do his own shopping from time to time. In vain he wrote brown bread on the list, sometimes wholemeal, underlined. White and flabby was what he always got.

The two slices of toast leaped in the air and fell back into their slots. He whisked them out onto a plate and, picking up his mug of coffee carried both over to the table. Butter, still in its paper and already liberally anointed with yesterday’s toast crumbs, stood there waiting together with a jar of Oxford Marmalade. He grinned to himself. In spite of the bread it was still his favourite breakfast and it was going to be another glorious day. He had to spend most of it in his study catching up on paperwork and going over his sermon one more time, but it was still very early and there was going to be time for a walk.

He had only been in the parish a few months and he was still feeling his way with both congregation and geography. The best time to explore, he had discovered, was the early morning when the streets and lanes were comparatively empty and he could wander round without being accosted by his parishioners. So, he would allow himself a couple of hours to eat and walk before coming back inside and facing the pile of papers in his study.

Breakfast complete, headlines from the paper which had appeared on his doormat scanned – he had been amused to see when he had first arrived that the lady from the paper shop had assumed he would read the Telegraph, so he had gone in to thank her, congratulate her on her business acumen in snaring a new customer and tactfully amended the order to The Times – it was time to set out.

The rectory stood back in its garden down a long gravel drive at the end of Church Street. It was not the old rectory, of course – that had burned down a hundred years before – but an old house none the less, acquired by the church in the 1920s as a fit home for a parson and his then large family. It was a big house for one man, but Mike had been enormously pleased to find his new parish was not one of those which had decided a characterless modern bungalow was a fitting habitation for its rector.

It was a pleasant Georgian-fronted building, painted a pale Suffolk pink, the interior probably Elizabethan and heavily beamed. He would try and find out about some of its earlier history one day when he was not so busy. The garden, he had noted sadly, was, apart from a few lovely trees, more or less devoid of interest. It was not very big, which was probably just as well, given the fact that he suspected he would have little time to give to it and there would be no money from either his own pocket or the diocese for a gardener. Wonderfully, he had managed to secure the services of a cleaning lady two mornings a week. Probably not for long. He doubted if he could afford her forever. It had been a shock when he realised just how small in real terms his stipend would be as a country parson. He gazed at the grass. It was as always neatly mown and as always he wondered who on earth had done it. One of the PCC perhaps, choosing a moment when they knew he would be out, or one of the other kind people who had offered him their services when he had first arrived in the parish. Many had offered help. The two food baskets – to stave off starvation, he supposed – which had greeted his arrival, had from time to time been discreetly replaced and two ladies had offered to cook him the occasional meal.

He grinned to himself. Several people, including the bishop, had warned him about the ladies. An unmarried, good-looking rector in his early forties – Mike was broad-shouldered, fair-haired, blue-eyed – would be a major target once they had decided amongst themselves that he wasn’t gay!

Slamming the door, he headed for the gate. Church Street was, up here at the top, actually more of a lane. Beyond his house, the church itself sat serenely in its churchyard sheltered by three huge yew trees, a surprisingly rural setting when one considered that Manningtree was actually a small town – the smallest town in England, so someone had told him – and that over the hedge he could see lines of old roofs rising gently up the hillside.

This early, the road was deserted. He strode down it purposefully, passing between houses much like his own, except that where it descended into the centre of the town they were terraced and what gardens they had were hidden by high walls. Down on the corner where Church Street met the High Street the last two houses had been converted into double-fronted shops, but a glance at the roofs showed that they too were as old as the rest of the street. One of them, he had noticed, had been empty since he moved in.

In the High Street he turned east, round the corner and down to the River Stour to walk along the road which bordered the narrow strip of salt marsh and the mudflats which were such a characteristic of the river at this point. He passed a solitary dog walker who acknowledged him with a raised hand and continued on his way. He loved this walk. Strolling along under the sycamores which lined the road to Mistley, the second half of his parish, he followed the pavement which on his right ran parallel to the long wall which once had bounded the great Rigby estates, a feature which had given the road its name, ‘The Walls’, whilst on his left lay breathtaking views of water, mud and sky. He stopped and stared for several minutes. The tide was out, the river estuary mostly mud, the low Suffolk coast on the far side hidden in the early morning mist. The shore was blue and mauve with sea lavender and tiny yellow-centred asters and as he walked slowly on he became aware of multitudes of birds running about on the mud. He wasn’t very good at bird identification but he could recognise a seagull when he saw one, and swans, and what he thought might be oystercatchers, with their smart black-and-white plumage and red bills.

He was heading for the second of the churches in his sprawling parish of Manningtree with Mistley, the one which, he admitted wryly to himself, fascinated him probably far more than it warranted. When he had first arrived he had asked to be shown it several times. He knew of course that it was a ruin, but surely, he had thought, there would be something to see. He knew he was a bit of a romantic, a side of himself he tried sternly to keep under control, but he did feel, quite strongly, that even a ruined church would still have an aura of sanctity about it. Perhaps he would be able to hold the occasional service in the ruins. He had not at the time had the chance to put this idea to anyone locally and perhaps that was just as well. His first few requests to see it had somehow not been heard. And this lack of response had intrigued him. He had investigated its history and found amongst other things that it might have been the burial place of the notorious Witchfinder General. He had of course gone looking for it himself at the first opportunity. What he found had disappointed him, but he had driven past on a rainy day. Today he was on foot and it was a glorious morning and he wanted to see if he could find out why the church had been allowed to fall into decay. Why it had been demolished.

Cutting through the centre of Mistley with its irresistible combination of Victorian industrial buildings, old Maltings and quay, its famous Adam Towers and swan fountain, its lovely houses and cottages, he made his way inland up a short track towards the path across the fields. He loved Mistley. The centre of the village was very small and these days so quiet it was hard to picture it as the bustling town it had once been.

The ruins of the old church lay up a narrow road beyond New Mistley, opposite the lane up which he strolled. Beyond, across the shoulder of the hill, he could see glimpses of the broad estuary, the water brilliant blue beneath the clear sky. There was a wind out there. He could see a white sail tacking out towards the sea, but inland it was very still, and the air was growing hotter. He could smell the wild honeysuckle in the hawthorn hedges, and the hot floury scent of the stubble in the fields.

He paused, looking round. There was still no one about. It was extraordinarily quiet. Turning slowly he found himself wishing suddenly that he had a dog to walk. It would be company on his early-morning strolls. In the distance he could see the huddled roofs of the small hamlet of Old Mistley, while behind him sprawled the houses of the new developments. But here, in the fields he was completely alone.

The site of the church was unmarked. All he could see was the brick wall which had surrounded the churchyard. It was almost buried under brambles and nettles now and behind it was what looked like a small orchard or paddock. There was no sign of the church itself at all. Within living memory, so he understood, the tower had still been standing and had been used to conduct funerals, then it had been declared unsafe and demolished. The site had been sold.

On the opposite side of the road was a pink-washed cottage, set back behind a wild tangled hedge. Its windows were dark and bare of curtains. A drunken-looking For Sale sign lounged beside the gate.

‘Can I help you?’

A stocky, bearded man had appeared in the lane behind him, two black labradors waiting patiently at his heels. The man’s eyes were hard with suspicion.

Mike shook his head. ‘I was just looking. I wondered if anything remained of the old church.’

‘It’s long gone.’ The man’s expression did not invite confidences and Mike found himself biting back his intention of introducing himself.

‘A shame,’ he said mildly.

‘Damn good thing. Evil place! You keep out of there. It’s private property.’ Whistling to his dogs, the man walked on up the road.

Mike exhaled loudly. Evil? No, how can it be, it’s church property, he wanted to shout. Mine! But of course it wasn’t true. Not any more. He watched the retreating back for a minute or two, then resumed his inspection of the site. As far as he could see there were no yew trees, no grave stones, no sign at all that there had ever been a church there except for the wall, and, he squinted through the nettles, the twisted remains of a gate lying below what had once been a gatepost deep in the undergrowth.

The wall beyond it, round the corner, had begun to crumble away. Without giving himself time to think Mike pushed his way through the nettles and scrambled over the broken bricks into what had once been the churchyard itself. Branches swung across behind him and within seconds he was totally screened from the road. He smiled to himself. It probably wasn’t wise for the rector to be caught trespassing but on the other hand his curiosity had been intensified by the man’s aggressive manner.

He moved forward into a patch of sunlight and stared round. He could see signs of old walls now, and a faint rectangular depression in the ground where the church must have stood. The whole area was thickly wooded. As far as he remembered from its description in The Lost Parish Churches of Essex it had been a beautiful medieval church with nave, aisle, porch and tower. The village had moved, the population drifting down the hill towards the bustle of the small port on the river’s edge, but that did not explain why it had been so completely lost. After all, there were other remote churches around; churches in the centre of a field or a wood and they had not been pulled down. They had been treasured and preserved. The voice of the man in the lane echoed suddenly in his head. ‘Evil place!’ he had said. Why evil? Was it something to do with Matthew Hopkins and the witches, or was it something else? Something infinitely older? An ancient ash tree shaded the ground and everywhere there were hawthorns and elders, heavy with ripening berries. The grass was kept short, he saw now, by some half-dozen sheep which were grazing on the far side of the trees. It was a beautiful, peaceful place. He took a couple of steps forward and paused. The birds had fallen silent. He shivered as a shadow fell across the ground at his feet.

Why exactly had they demolished the church? And if it was because it had grown dangerous, why had they allowed that to happen? And why had they to all intents and purposes flattened the graveyard? Not a single stone survived upright as far as he could see. And why, on this once-hallowed ground, was there not even one single cross as a memorial to the building that had once stood here?

Slowly he turned. The sun had disappeared behind a single stormy cloud and the warmth of colour had gone out of the morning. Making his way towards the gate he found himself conscious suddenly that someone was watching him. The skin on the back of his neck prickled and he glanced round again. He could see no one.

‘Hello?’ His voice sounded curiously flat in the silence. ‘Is there someone there?’

There was no answer.

By the distant wall the leaves rustled briefly and he swung round. ‘Hello?’ he called again. The wall was in shadow now, the bricks uneven, covered in moss and ivy. Something moved suddenly and he focused on it carefully. A tiny, mouse-like brown bird was running in and out amongst the ivy. A wren. He watched it for a minute and found he was smiling, his sudden tension defused.

Making his way back to where the gate had been he stared down at the gap in the wall. It had been filled with barbed wire. A rusty chain which had once held the gate closed dangled emptily in space. He fingered it slowly, then climbed back over the wall. Clearly he wasn’t the first to do so. He could see the signs now of other feet on the crumbling mortar, bent and broken vegetation, an old footprint set into the mud, long dried and baked in the August sun.

Once in the lane, he turned away from the church and began to walk briskly back towards Mistley. Next time he came up here he would drive up the hill, wear his dog collar and make a few calls. Whilst attending to his parochial duties he could ask a few questions about the church that was no more. He did not even glance at the cottage across the road.

5

Lyndsey Clark had lived in Mistley for five out of her twenty-five years. She knew every inch of this place – the church ruins, the churchyard, Liza’s – and regarded them all as her own. She had recognised the rector as soon as he had emerged from the path across the field and she watched curiously to see what he was up to, catching her breath suspiciously as he climbed into the churchyard, creeping forward in the shelter of the hawthorns to see what he was going to do. He shouldn’t be here. She shivered violently. He was disturbing the place, she could sense it already, although – she frowned, her head cocked like a dog picking up a scent – not intentionally. He didn’t know what he was doing. She shook her head in an anguish of worry suddenly, pushing her short dark hair back off her face.

Leave. Please leave. Quickly. Before you do damage.

Biting her lip, she craned between two branches, her vivid blue eyes focused intently on the figure under the trees.

He was feeling his way. After a while he turned back towards the road, then he stopped and looked straight at her even though she knew he couldn’t see her. She was wearing a dark green T-shirt and black jeans which must have blended into the shadows, and yet – she held her breath. Yes, he was a sensitive. That would be dangerous in a man of the church, although in her admittedly somewhat limited experience, those were rare these days.

She heard the wren in the ivy near her, saw him spot the bird and watch it for a moment, smiling to himself, then he was on his way over the wall and out into the lane. He did not even glance in her direction.

Silently she whispered a thank you to the little bird which had taken his attention. It paused, cocked its head in her direction, bobbed a quick acknowledgement and it was gone.

She gave him a minute or two to get well down the lane, then she made her way to the crumbling part of the wall where it was easy to climb in. The atmosphere, usually, thanks largely to her efforts, so placid and dreamlike, was uncomfortable, the air tense and jumpy. She made her way slowly towards a rough patch of grass where lichen and moss had grown over the foundations of the long-fallen wall. It was near here she felt Hopkins most strongly, the man whose evil haunted her life. It wasn’t the grave, of course, but too many people had thought it was even after the church was finally demolished, the graveyard destroyed, the land deconsecrated. Especially after it was deconsecrated. Their thoughts, their fears, their excitement and their malice had congealed into a tangible weight of sorrow and fear. Most of the time she could contain it. She knew the ways. Counter spell and spell. Prayer. Binding charms. They all worked if one knew what one was doing; all prevented the reality manifesting from the thought. As long as nothing – no one – upset the balance.

Glancing round to make doubly sure no one was there, she fished in the pocket of her jeans for a small pouch. In it were dried herbs. Herbs gathered from the garden at Liza’s. Carefully she scattered the dusty leaves around the inside of the walls before going back to the centre, where she crouched down on the ground and scraped a small hole amongst the grasses with her fingernail. She tucked the pins and the small piece of knotted thread into the soil and covered them, rearranging the grass around the place. In seconds all signs of her intervention had gone. Standing up again she wandered over to a tree stump where for a moment she sat down, the sun on her back. She could hear the bees humming in the flowers nearby. They were calm now, their agitation soothed. If she listened she could hear their gossip, the hive memory, relayed down the years …

The garden had been smaller in Cromwell’s time, enclosed within a picket fence, the small neat beds in summer a riot of undisciplined bounty. Fruit and flowers, herbs and vegetables, all crammed into the spaces between the gravel paths where yet more herbs had seeded in a riot of colour. Marigold and feverfew, dandelion and hyssop, thyme and marjoram. Liza made her way slowly between the rosemary bushes, her basket in her hand, plucking a sprig here, a leaf there as the sun dried the dew and the plant oils began to release their scents into the morning air. She woke at dawn on these summer mornings, glad to lever her aching bones from her bed. As her body bent and grew frail the pain became more intense. It was hard to look up now, the curve of her back was so pronounced. Hard to look at the sky, to see the sun, to watch the birds fly over. Her knowledge and experience of remedies and medicines was of little use to her now. Nothing she did seemed to help. Only the sunshine, with its blessed warmth shining down on her eased her a little. She crooned a greeting to the old cat sitting on the path ahead of her and it rose, coming to rub against her legs, before sitting once more in the patch of sunlight and lifting a fastidious paw to wash its left ear.

She needed horehound and pennyroyal and thyme for young Jane Butcher who was near her time. It would be a long and painful birth if she was any judge. The child in her belly was huge – the babe taking after its father, John Butcher, a large man whose two earlier wives had both died in child bed. Why didn’t he choose a woman with broad hips and meaty thighs like his own? Why did he pick such little child-wives with such narrow bones? She shook her head sadly. Jane was terribly afraid. And with reason. Liza passed on amongst her plants. She needed hyssop and blackberry leaves for her neighbour’s sore throat and a poultice for Sir Harbottle Grimstone’s cowman who had a cut on his hand which was swollen and yellow with undischarged pus. She sighed. They paid well, her customers, and she was happy to help them with their pain, but sometimes she wished there was someone who would help her. Someone to bring her warm soothing possets in the evening, someone to help her change her old woollen gown when the ache in her arms made her cry as she tried to pull it over her head, someone who would take over the garden for her before it ran riot for the last time and took her by the throat and strangled her. She gave a hoarse chuckle at the thought. As long as the plants survived she supposed it was all right. They didn’t need to be as neat as they were when she had first planted out her little medicinal garden. And they would probably outlive her. And Sarah came when she could with a basket of food or a warm shawl or a jug of ale. Sarah, daughter of the manor, her suckling child, the little girl who had replaced her own dead baby at her breast. She pulled her small shears out of her pocket and snipped and cut and tugged at the leaves until the basket was overflowing.

The cat had followed her. It stopped near a patch of catnip and threw itself headfirst into the clump, rolling ecstatically amongst the aromatic leaves and she chuckled again.

On a shelf in the cottage she kept the utensils of her trade meticulously neat. Pestle and mortar, bowls, scoops and jugs, all washed and drained and clean. Baskets and bags of dried herbs hung on hooks from the ceiling beams and boxes were stacked carefully on a table in the corner. She set her basket of fresh pickings down on the table and went to check the fire. The iron pot of water hanging over the coals was nearly boiling.

Jane Butcher’s medicine first.

She worked on for a long time, conscious that the beam of sunlight coming through the kitchen door was moving steadily across the floor. Soon the sun would move round into the south and her kitchen would be shadowy again and cool. Squinting at the jug in her hand she tried to work faster. Once the sun had gone it was harder to see what she was doing and more and more often the thick black tinctures which came from her pots would spill across the scrubbed oak of her table.

Once she stopped and stared at the door, listening. Had that been someone at the gate? She could hear the high-pitched alarm call of a mother bird telling her young to hide low in the nest – a cry understood and acted on by every other bird in the garden. Perhaps it was the old cat which was causing such consternation. His roll in the catnip might have rejuvenated him enough to stalk a bird but somehow she doubted it. She frowned. Her hearing was still acute even if her eyes were growing dim. In the silence of the garden she could hear menace. Slowly putting down her jug and spoon she hobbled to the door and stood looking out. There was no one to be seen. The lane was empty. There was no sign of the cat. But somewhere something was wrong.

Then she saw him, the man standing half hidden in the shade of the old pear tree in the hedge and she recognised him. It was one of Hopkins’s servants. She stared at him for a moment, puzzled. Why was he watching her? Seeing her turn towards him he drew back into the shadows and she saw him clench his fists into the sign against the evil eye before he turned and fled, and in spite of the warmth of the sun across her shoulders and the scents of the herbs around her she suddenly smelled the cold breath of fear.

6

Pulling her MG into the car park near the Co-op Emma crawled slowly between tightly packed rows of cars trying to find a space. ‘Better to park there and walk up to the shop,’ the house agent had said. ‘There’s no parking along the High Street here and not much anywhere on a Saturday.’

How right he was. The place was teeming. Someone backed out in front of her and she turned into the space with relief. She was exhausted. It had been a two-hour drive from London – a drive starting with a row with Piers …

‘I’m sorry. I told you yesterday, I am not going off on some wild goose chase to see a cottage I don’t want in a county I don’t like on a weekend I want to stay at home!’

He had been furious when she confessed she had rung the agent that morning at nine a.m.

‘Yes, you’re right. It is Liza’s.’ The young man’s voice had been hoarse, as though he had a bad cold. ‘Yes, it is still on the market. There’s been a lot of interest, but no one has made a definite offer yet. Yes, you could view it today.’

‘Liza’s.’ She had repeated the name to herself as she hung up. ‘Liza’s Cottage.’

Will Fortingale, the young man at the estate agent’s, did indeed have a bad cold. His nose was red and swollen and he was clutching a large handkerchief as he opened the filing cabinet and pulled out a folder of particulars and a bunch of keys.

‘Do you know how to find it?’ He withdrew a couple of stapled sheets of A4 and handed them to her.

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Right. Well. It’s not occupied, so they won’t mind you looking round it on your own. You don’t want me to go with you?’ He glanced up anxiously and she saw the relief in his eyes as she shook her head. He had summed her up as she walked through the door. He could always tell a serious buyer and Emma Dickson wasn’t a serious buyer. There was no point in trying too hard with this sale, especially as he was feeling so damn rotten.

She waited whilst he scribbled down some instructions for her, found and photocopied a local map, handed her the keys, then she was out in the street again.

She did not remember Manningtree at all. She stood outside the agent’s shop and stared round in delight. It was a pretty town, the centre consisting as far as she could see of little more than the narrow, busy main road in which she was standing with a couple of other streets crossing it at right angles. She squinted at the map in her hand. She was standing on the corner of Church Street. South Street ran parallel with it fifty yards or so along. All were hung with flower baskets – old houses and shops alike decorated with fuchsia and geraniums, lobelia and ivy. She pressed back against the wall as a car swept by and hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should have a cup of coffee somewhere before going on to see the house. She had left home without having any breakfast, and she had been on the road so long she was feeling quite weak. Besides, she was, she realised, suddenly a little apprehensive about finally going inside the house whose keys were clutched in her hand. The whole enterprise had acquired an emotional overload which had begun to alarm her.

She could see a coffee house from where she was standing outside an empty shop, its windows whitewashed, a For Sale notice hanging from the jettied storey above the front door. As she stood hesitating the door opened and a man came out. Talking hard and looking over his shoulder back into the shop he cannoned into her violently, nearly knocking her off her feet.

‘Oh my God, I’m sorry!’ He grabbed her arm and steadied her as she staggered into the gutter, the cottage keys flying out of her hand. ‘Oh shit! Let me get those. Have I hurt you? Come and sit down a minute.’

Before she knew it she had been drawn through the door into the empty shop and pushed into a folding canvas chair.

‘I’m OK, honestly.’ She had finally got her breath back enough to speak.

‘No you’re not, look at your foot!’

She looked down at her sandalled feet. Below her pink jeans her ankle looked a bit swollen and was already distinctly black. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks, honestly.’ She was overwhelmed and not a little embarrassed by his concern. ‘It’ll be fine.’

The man who was now kneeling at her feet was tall and wiry, probably like her in his mid-thirties. Dressed in blue jeans and a checked shirt he had short cropped dark hair and a long, rather mournful face. ‘It doesn’t look fine to me. I am a clot. I never look where I’m going. Colin, do something!’

Emma had not even realised there was someone else in the room. The man who now stood forward was shortish and solidly built with pepper-and-salt hair, perhaps in his mid-forties. He grinned at her peaceably.

‘My colleague is always flattening people and I constantly find myself picking them up!’ His voice had the unmistakable singsong of the Welsh hills. ‘Would you like a doctor, an ambulance, a bandage, a lawyer or a cup of coffee?’

Emma burst out laughing. ‘I’ll settle for a coffee. That is where I was heading when we bumped into each other.’

‘God, that’s tactful!’ The younger man straightened up. ‘Bumped into each other! I completely bulldozed you.’

‘You’re forgiven!’ Emma was rubbing her foot. ‘Much as I’m enjoying the sympathy this is not a bruise, you know. It’s actually dirt.’

‘Off my great clumping shoes.’ The younger man looked down at his feet ruefully. ‘This place is filthy.’

‘I’ll fetch us some coffee while Mark looks after you.’ The Welshman fished in his pocket for some change. ‘We have made an arrangement with the café next door. They will let us bring real cups across here and they have nice home-made cakes and buns.’ He winked.

‘Are you buying this shop?’ Emma looked round for the first time as he disappeared out into the street. The man she now knew as Mark shook his head. ‘God, no. In fact I gather the shop is almost unsaleable.’ There was another folding chair in the room beside the one in which Emma was seated, and two large metal cases of what looked like cameras and photographic equipment, a heavy coil of cable, two large canvas bags and a spotlight on a tripod. Uneven oak floorboards covered in dusty footmarks and heavily beamed walls and ceiling proclaimed the age of the building. In the far corner a broad flight of stairs led up out of sight. There was an ugly modern counter to one side of them, bare but for a couple of notebooks, two empty coffee cups – presumably from the obliging café next door – pen, light meter and clipboard.

‘You’re photographers?’ Emma waggled her foot experimentally.

‘Film. TV.’ Mark turned to his briefcase and pulled out a pack of Kleenex. He proffered it hopefully. ‘Will this help clean you up? Or there’s a loo upstairs.’

‘Actually I might go up and wash my hands.’ She pulled herself to her feet with a wince.

‘Straight up. You can’t miss it.’ He grinned. It was his lucky day. A beautiful woman, literally, falling at his feet!

Glancing into the upper room from the landing at the top of the stairs she saw that it was large and empty, the windows leaded and dusty. A bluebottle was beating against one of the panes and on the floor below the sill she could see the bodies of several others. She shivered. In spite of the frenzied buzzing of the fly there was a strange stillness in the room which was unnerving.

She found the cloakroom, cleaned off most of the dust, washed her hands and was making her way back towards the empty room when she heard someone walking across the floor towards the staircase. She paused in the doorway, looking round. ‘Mark?’

There was no answer. ‘Mark, are you there?’ The room was empty. The bluebottle was lying on its back on the window sill, spinning feebly in circles. She stepped cautiously into the room. ‘Hello? Is there anyone here?’

The silence was intense, as though someone was holding their breath, listening.

‘Mark? Colin?’ She stared round nervously. ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

There was no answer.

Retreating to the top of the stairs she glanced back towards the window and caught her breath in surprise. There was someone there, surely. A stooped figure, staring at her across the pile of boxes in the middle of the floor.

Welcome back.

The words seemed to hang in the air.

For a moment she couldn’t move, her eyes locked onto the pale, indistinct face, then a child shouted suddenly in the street below and the moment was over. The figure was gone – a mere trick of the light – the room was empty.

She felt a knot of fear tightening in her chest. Sternly she dismissed it. Hurrying downstairs she limped towards her chair and flung herself down in it, shaken. ‘You weren’t upstairs just now, were you?’

Mark glanced up from the notebook he was writing in. ‘No. Why?’

She shrugged. ‘I thought I heard someone up there.’ Cautiously she began to rub her ankle.

He scrutinised her face for a moment. ‘Really?’

She nodded. ‘It was a bit spooky, to be honest!’ She gave a small apologetic laugh. ‘It was probably my imagination. Did you say you were making a film here?’

Mark nodded. ‘A documentary.’

‘And what is so special about this place? I mean, I can see it’s very old and attractive, but presumably that’s not enough to warrant a film?’

Mark shook his head. ‘No. Well, as I think you might have guessed, it’s part of a series on haunted buildings.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘You weren’t thinking of buying it, were you?’ He nodded towards the keys lying next to her bag. The estate agent’s tag was large and obvious.

She shivered ostentatiously. ‘Good Lord, no. I was on my way to see a country cottage.’ She frowned uncertainly. ‘Perhaps I’m going mad, but I think I might have seen your ghost up there. A figure, by the window. Does that sound likely?’

Mark stared. ‘It’s possible. What did it look like?’

‘Sort of wan and transparent!’

He grinned. ‘Sounds fairly authentic. I’m jealous. I haven’t seen a thing yet.’

‘It could have been a trick of the light.’

‘True.’ He was watching her closely.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘So, who is this ghost?’ And quite suddenly she didn’t want to know. She quite desperately didn’t want to know. But it was too late. Mark was launching into his story.

‘OK, I’ll tell you the full sordid tale. This shop is so haunted it has been owned or leased by about a dozen different businesses in the last few years. No one stays long and now its reputation goes before it so it’s been on the market for three years.’

‘And you’re going to film the ghost?’ Without realising it Emma had wrapped her arms around herself tightly. She glanced up at the ceiling.

‘That’s the general idea. We heard about it in a roundabout way through one of our scouts who had worked on House Detectives just up the road, and after a bit of research we felt it would fit our series really well. Ah, Colin, sustenance!’

The Welshman had appeared in the doorway with a tray. On it were three large cups of coffee and a plate of cakes. He slid the tray onto the counter. ‘If this project takes more than a day or two I’m going to want danger money for cake overload.’ He passed Emma the plate. ‘Please take the chocolate one because if you don’t I will and I mustn’t.’ He patted his stomach ruefully.

Laughing uneasily, Emma helped herself to a large sticky slice. ‘Anything to oblige.’ She glanced round the room. The atmosphere was better now. Normal. ‘Have you seen it, Colin?’

‘It?’

‘The ghost.’

‘Ah,’ Colin glanced at Mark. ‘No, not yet. And I’d be grateful if you didn’t spread it around why we’re here. We’ve told the café people we’re surveyors. Which I suppose, if one were being a little bit disingenuous, one could say was true. They know the story of course, and they’ll find out in the end why we’re here, but I don’t want every bored kid in town tapping on the windows and wailing at the locks the moment it gets dark if I can help it.’

‘Have you filmed ghosts before?’ In spite of the distraction of the chocolate cake, she couldn’t stop herself thinking about the silent upstairs room with its shadowy occupant.

‘Yup.’ Mark took a bite of coffee and walnut. ‘With mixed results and open to all sorts of questions but Col and I were pretty convinced we’d caught something. The last one was up in Lincolnshire.’

‘This is a difficult one.’ Colin sat down in the other chair. ‘The story involves this whole town. It’s a very emotive subject. This place is supposed to be haunted by several ghosts, amongst them a guy called Matthew Hopkins. He was Oliver Cromwell’s Witch-finder General. One of those all-time villains of history. You must have heard of him? There was a film about him.’

‘A bit before her time!’ Mark grinned. ‘It was a Michael Reeves film. 1968. Our hero was played by Vincent Price, who was fifty-seven years old at the time, although Matthew actually seems to have died before he was twenty-five.’ He sucked his breath in through his teeth. ‘Well, we all know about historical veracity in films. Perhaps we can do something to put some facts in place. There is enough horror in the truth here, from what I gather.’

‘I do remember the film.’ Emma frowned. She was feeling uncomfortable again, ever more aware of that upstairs room. ‘I must have seen it on TV. I don’t know if that was based on fact, but weren’t hundreds of poor old women burned at the stake?’ She shuddered.

‘Ah, well, no.’ Mark squatted down on the floor beside one of the bags and drew out a file of papers. ‘I’m still researching, but it seems that they weren’t burnt at all. They were hanged. And there weren’t hundreds of them. More like dozens.’

‘Mark is getting all evangelical about this one,’ Colin grinned, almost indulgently. ‘But that is good. We have to get the facts right. Then whatever story there is here will be all the stronger. Hopkins is supposed to have tortured some of his victims in this building – this shop was part of a much larger house originally. It belonged to the Phillips family and Mary Phillips, who worked with Matthew Hopkins, lived here at some point. She was a really nasty piece of work. She pricked the witches with a vicious spike to find the Devil’s mark.’

‘Oh, that’s awful.’ Emma stood up. ‘Is that her I saw upstairs?’ Suddenly she was shivering violently.

‘You saw something?’ Colin stared at her. ‘A psychic, eh? Bloody hell! And you’ve only been here two minutes! Well, perhaps we can use you to entice the ghosts out for us.’

‘I don’t think so!’ Emma shuddered. ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, it was my imagination.’

Mark grinned. ‘You’ve gone quite white. There’s nothing to be scared of – not in broad daylight.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘As you say it was probably a trick of the light. The trouble is, once stories like this one start going round they take off like wildfire, then everyone who sees a shadow thinks it’s a ghost, and then it’s hard to separate out the objective from the subjective from the downright lies. Although as Colin says, there seems to be so much round here that’s quite sinister, almost as though –’ He paused and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. There’s a sort of evil ambience about this place. Not just the shop, but this whole area.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Odd, when it’s all so pretty. Sorry. Take no notice. We’re going to be very objective about this, aren’t we, Col? We’re conducting interviews over the next week or so and of course we’ll be filming in here day and night. It’s a good opportunity while the shop is empty. They’re arranging yet another short let and once that’s under way we won’t be able to get in.’

Emma shook her head. ‘Well, you certainly have an intriguing job! I suppose this is for the telly?’

‘It certainly is.’ Mark nodded.

‘I shall look forward to seeing it.’ She hesitated. ‘It feels really spooky up there, whatever it was I saw.’

Mark and Colin exchanged glances. ‘I think so,’ Mark said quietly.

‘I try not to.’ Colin grinned affably. ‘I don’t want my hand shaking while I’m filming.’ He paused, his head on one side. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy being in the film? You could regale us with what you saw just now.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘OK.’ He grinned. ‘Worth a try. Here, have some more cake.’

Laughing, she shook her head. ‘I must go.’ Gathering up her bag and map, she picked up the bunch of keys. ‘Thank you for your hospitality. Perhaps if I buy my cottage I’ll see you around?’

Mark shrugged. ‘Maybe. Good luck with the viewing. I hope it is all you dreamed of.’ His gaze followed her to the door. Turning to raise a hand in farewell as she closed it behind her she didn’t see the wistful appreciation in his eyes or hear Colin’s resigned chuckle. ‘Give up, Mark! She’s gone.’

7

Emma remembered Mark’s final words as she drew up outside the cottage and switched off the car engine. Dozing in the sun behind its curtain of roses it was pink-washed with black beams. Half the roof was thatched, the other half roofed in old lichen-covered tiles and it stood sideways to the lane at its junction with a smaller, narrower road heading off into the country, set well back behind a wall of overgrown garden. She climbed out of the car and for a moment stood still, just staring. It was enchanting.

The gate was broken, the once-black paint peeling off in brittle flakes, looking too frail to touch. She was reaching out to push it open when she became conscious suddenly that someone was watching her. She turned round. A young woman was standing a hundred yards away holding a bicycle, staring at Emma with undisguised hostility. As she saw Emma spot her, she climbed onto the bike and pedalled off. Emma shrugged and turned back to the gate. If someone else had wanted to buy the cottage they presumably had had time by now to do something about it. So why should they resent someone looking at the place? Cautiously pushing the gate back on its hinges she let herself into the garden. The flowerbeds were alive with bees and butterflies, a mosaic of bright scented colour. It was the cottage of her childhood memories, her fantasies, of the dream she only hazily recalled. The woman in the lane was already forgotten. Taking a step forward, she stopped again. It was strange. Although as far as she knew she had never set foot inside the gate, she did seem to know it all so well. She knew where each flowerbed lay, beneath the tangle of untended shrubs and weeds, she knew where the pump handle was, to the side of the front door, she remembered the medlar tree and the mulberry and the blackthorn and the pear in the hedge, the apples in the back garden and the circular beds separated with large round lumps of stone and flint.

Shaking her head she sniffed and she realised suddenly to her astonishment that she was crying. Brushing her cheek with the back of her hand she took a few slow paces towards the door. Only then did she realise that she had been so eager to climb out of the car and look at the house that she had left the keys on the passenger seat. Retracing her steps, she found them. There were six on the bunch. Two front door keys, a back door key and three shed keys. Selecting the most likely with a shaking hand, she inserted it into the lock. It clicked back easily and she found herself pushing the door open. But she already knew, without having set foot inside, that she was going to buy this house, whatever the cost, financially or emotionally. She couldn’t live without it.

In the excitement of the moment she did not give Piers a thought.

The hall was dark. It smelled of rich, sun-warmed wood and dust. She stepped over the pile of circulars and junk mail on the mat and stood, holding her breath.

Welcome home, Emma.

The voice in her head was quiet, but clear. The same voice that she had heard in the shop, surely, but this time it wasn’t frightening. It was warm. Enticing. It enfolded her.

She smiled and took a step forward.

I have waited a long time for you to come, my dear.

She frowned. And in spite of herself she shivered. It was her imagination, of course it was, but just for a moment it sounded as though the voice came from outside herself. She glanced round nervously. It was Mark and Colin’s fault, with all their talk of ghosts. How silly. There was no one there. No one at all.

This is your house now, Emma. Yours and mine. We’re going to live here together, Emma. You’ll be happy here, Emma.

The voice was inside her head again, almost as though it were part of her. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the voice had gone.

‘Is there anyone there?’

Of course there wasn’t. How could there be? She was just being foolish.

There were two downstairs living rooms and a largish kitchen, all heavily beamed. The narrow oak staircase led up from the hall to a landing off which there were three bedrooms, one of which, overlooking the front garden and the lane, was by far the nicest and instantly ear-marked by Emma as her own, and a small bathroom which looked as though it had last been modernised forty years ago. The whole place was dusty and shabby, but it exuded a wonderful feeling of peace and happiness. Upstairs the rooms smelled of flowers. It felt like home.

It is home, Emma!

Again, the strange voice in her head. Seductive. Gentle. Insistent. Her friend.

‘It is, isn’t it!’ Emma smiled as she discovered she had spoken out loud. ‘You’re right, whoever you are. This is home!’

She spent the whole afternoon at the cottage wandering round, sitting in first one room then another, exploring the garden, poking around in the outbuildings, totally and completely happy. The gardens were, if she were completely honest with herself, all that she had ever wanted without even knowing that she harboured any such longing at all: sprawling, untidy, packed with flowers and herbs, begging for someone to come and work on them and love them and coax them back into shape. As she stood at the rear of the cottage, surveying the scene, she could feel every fibre of her being aching to get to work, to plunge her hands into the soil, to pick the few remaining roses and bury her face in the soft damask petals. This place had been a nursery. It had been a business. It would be a way of life to whoever bought it. It could be a herb nursery again. It could be a business again, under her ownership.

It was as she glanced at her watch and realised that she would have to leave to catch the agent before he closed that the panic started and the image of the young woman who had glared at her in the lane returned with full force. That woman did not want her to buy the cottage. Why?

Will Fortingale was just about to go home. His secretary had already left and he was tidying away the papers on his desk when Emma opened the door and came in. He smiled at her wearily. ‘What did you think?’

‘I love it.’ She put the keys down on the desk.

‘You do?’ His eyes brightened perceptibly. ‘Of course, it’s been empty for a long time. It needs a lot doing to it. The last owner ran the nursery but they didn’t live in the house. They’ve got a place up in Bradfield. I think they let the house from time to time to holiday makers, but otherwise it’s been empty as you probably realised.’ He paused, sizing her up with a quick glance from beneath his eyelashes. Re-assessing her. Well-heeled, but no fool. ‘They would probably take a lower offer. It’s been on the market a while.’

‘Who was Liza?’

He was taken aback by the question. ‘I’ve no idea. Some old biddy who lived there, I suppose. The Simpsons might know. That’s the current owners.’ He glanced at his watch, torn between wanting to hang on to a potential customer and wanting to lock up and go home.

Emma smiled at him anxiously. ‘I’m prepared to put in an offer. Today. Now. You said no one else is interested? But I saw a woman up there watching me.’ She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, still embroiled in her inner turmoil. Her hands were shaking. This was madness but she could feel waves of real panic constricting her chest.

Will Fortingale laughed. ‘Probably a nosy neighbour. To be honest no one has been up there to look for a couple of weeks. There was a flurry of interest after the ad in Country Life, but that fizzled out.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s got too much land for a weekend cottage and not enough for a viable business.’ Glancing at her, he raised an eyebrow. ‘I presume you want it for the former?’

‘No.’ Emma spoke without thinking. ‘I’d live there permanently –’ She stopped abruptly. That was nonsense. Complete nonsense. How could she live there? Of course it would be a weekend cottage. If that.

She found herself groping for one of the chairs in front of Will’s desk. Sitting down, she rubbed her face with her hands. Piers would never agree. She couldn’t do this. Not without talking to him. It was madness. Complete madness.

‘Are you all right?’ Will was watching her carefully. He had recognised some of her feelings at once; he’d seen it all before. The falling in love with a house, the longing, the day-dream-could-happen syndrome. Sitting there opposite him she was within seconds of making some fantasy come true. Usually people hesitated at this point, back-pedalled a bit, played for time. Either they would offer a sum so ludicrously low that there was no chance of it being accepted and their face would be saved, or they would disappear without trace – the dream confronted, acknowledged and rejected as impractical.

He walked round to the front of the desk. ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’ Her face was pasty and white.

She nodded, clenching her hands together and waited as he disappeared into the cupboard at the back of the office which served as a kitchenette and reappeared with a glass and some bottled water.

She drank it greedily and put the empty glass down on his desk. The voice in her head had returned, no longer seductive. This time it was insistent.

You’ve got to buy it, Emma. You’ve got to. We’ve waited too long for this chance. Buy it, Emma!

She took a deep breath. ‘I have to have it. I can’t explain it. It’s completely stupid.’ The anguish in her voice was real. What about her job? She loved her job. But did she really enjoy working in the City? Was that going to be her whole life, forever? Until she retired? Was that what she really wanted? Had that voice been her inner self speaking? An inner self who wanted to opt out, to return to that golden time when she was a child, before her father died, when life was full of certainty.

And what about Piers?

She looked near to tears and in spite of himself Will bit his lip in sympathy. ‘Why not sleep on it, Miss Dickson? No one else has made an offer.’ There he was again, telling her! What was the matter with him? ‘You could safely take a day or two to think about it. Maybe go and see it again? Maybe bring someone for a second opinion?’ He paused. He did quite badly want her out of the office, he realised suddenly. She was making him feel extremely uncomfortable. Anxiety – even fear – was coming off her in waves.

She was sitting with her eyes shut and for a moment he didn’t think she had heard him until he realised that she was staring at him again. ‘What sort of offer will they accept?’

He hesitated, toying with the idea of inflating the price, but something made him hold back. He shook his head remorsefully. ‘They’d accept fifty K under the asking price. To get rid of it quickly.’

‘All right.’ Her voice was tightly controlled. ‘I’ll go for it.’ She could afford it. She had her savings and her father’s trust money and he would have approved of this, she was sure of it. He had always been an enthusiast.

‘But you’ll want a survey?’ Will couldn’t cope with this spontaneity. It didn’t fit the norm.

‘No.’ Shaking her head she stood up. She went and stood by the window, gazing out into the street. The empty shop across the road where she had passed her unexpected coffee break that morning was deserted, the front door padlocked. She turned back to Will. ‘Ring them. Now. Check they’ll accept it.’ Her knuckles were white on the edge of his desk. ‘And a deposit. They’ll want a deposit –’

‘Not before Monday, Miss Dickson.’ Will found himself seriously worried now. ‘Honestly. If you want it, it’s yours.’ He reached into the file to find the phone number. Glancing up, he indicated the chair. ‘Please, sit down again while I phone them.’ He smiled at her. ‘Relax. I’m sure there won’t be a problem.’

8

Saturday lunchtime

‘I suggest we do the interviews upstairs.’ Colin, having taken the tray back to the coffee shop, was adjusting the lens on his camera. ‘The wall up there would be a good background. The herringbone brickwork or whatever it is.’

Joe Thomson, their sound man, had joined them at lunchtime with his daughter Alice who was going to act as production assistant. Joe at forty-two was balding, very tall and thin. His daughter had inherited his height and build. At eighteen she was already as tall as her father. With short cropped hair and studs in eyebrows and nose she appeared far more confident and outgoing than in fact she was. This was her first assignment – a gap job before going up to university. Half of her was determined she would not blow it. The other half was scared stiff.

Colin and Mark had been in Manningtree for two days now, staying at a bed and breakfast in Brook Street, and Joe and Alice had joined them after driving down from London. The first day had been wasted for Colin and Mark when the expected key had not been forthcoming and Stan Barker, the owner, had proved extraordinarily elusive. They had only run him to earth that first evening at the pub, so their first visit to the shop had been perhaps appropriately after dark. The atmosphere had been suitably sinister.

After the visit Mark had slept uneasily and woken early. The second night he had been shocked awake by the sound of someone screaming. Splashing his face in cold water he had stood for several minutes in the bathroom of the bed and breakfast, staring into the mirror before he had tiptoed back to his bedroom. The sound had been part of his dream, he knew that. And yet, somehow it had come from outside him. He climbed back into bed and sat there, with the table light on, huddled beneath the bedcovers fighting sleep. When at last he had dozed off he dreamed he was running down a dark road and there were people chasing him. He could hear them shouting, baying like hounds and growing closer all the time. He was still running, out of breath and drenched in sweat, when his alarm clock woke him.

Mark glanced up at the others from the clipboard. ‘I’m going to want the interviews in different settings. Perhaps some outside by the river, or some of the other places associated with Hopkins. Unless the ghosts appear there’s basically not much to see here. An empty shop. An empty upstairs. But I’d like to get some shots of that staircase if we can light it properly. I’ve got three interviews set up for this afternoon, Joe. Barker first. I’m easy where he goes, wherever he feels most comfortable, then we can fit the others round him.’

‘You don’t think he’ll back out at the last moment?’ Colin hefted the camera up onto the counter.

‘He seemed quite keen.’ Mark flipped over the page and made a quick pencil note on his schedule. ‘I had a moment of inspiration and told him programmes like this lead to dozens of people trying to buy a property after it’s appeared on TV.’

‘Not necessarily after a programme like this one!’ Colin commented dryly.

‘No, well you never know!’ Mark glanced at his watch. ‘Let’s go up and see where it would be best to put him.’

He led the way up the creaking staircase. At the top he stopped, looking into the large upper room. He frowned. Something in there had changed from when he had been in there earlier.

‘Problem?’ Colin was immediately behind him, Joe and Alice at the rear.

‘No.’ Mark walked into the room. The last person up here had been Emma. She had seen something. Felt the atmosphere. He stared round thoughtfully. ‘Feel anything?’

‘Apart from cold?’ The others had trooped in behind him. Colin shivered.

‘Cold is a start. This is August.’

Colin strode over to the window and glanced down into the street. The window sill was level with his knees and he had to stoop to see out of it. ‘We expected bad vibes. What would a haunted house be without them?’ Hunkering down he reached for the window latch and pushed the small casement open. ‘The room just needs a bit of fresh air. This place has horrendous rising damp and probably dry rot and death-watch beetle and every other scourge that old buildings are heir to. Any of that would be enough to put off a buyer, you know.’ He stood up and faced the others. ‘Mark?’

Mark was staring at the brick wall. ‘I saw something move. There. In front of the wall.’ His face had gone white.

They all followed the pointing finger and looked hard at the bricks. The temperature in the room had plummeted. For a moment they stood in total silence, no one daring to move. The traffic noise from the High Street had ceased and the quiet was unnaturally claustrophobic.

‘Can’t see anything. Shall I go down for the camera?’ Colin said quietly. He glanced at Alice. She was gazing at the wall with a slight frown on her face. If she was scared she was hiding it well.

‘No.’ Mark stepped over beside him. ‘No, it’s gone, whatever it was.’

Outside a car hooted.

‘Probably a spider,’ Joe put in firmly. He rearranged his lanky frame, folding his arms nonchalantly.

‘Probably.’ Turning, Mark stared out of the window, taking a deep breath of the air flooding into the room. A strong smell of traffic fumes rose from the street below, where cars paused to pass each other in the narrow thoroughfare. Suddenly the room felt marginally warmer.

The interview took only twenty minutes from beginning to end. They could tell it was going to be a disaster from the moment Stan Barker walked into the shop.

‘I’m not going upstairs.’ He stood, uncomfortable in his best suit, just inside the door.

Colin eyed the florid face, the too-tight collar, the jazzy tie, and glanced at Mark with a raised eyebrow.

Mark gave a barely perceptible shrug. ‘Perhaps you could stand there, at the bottom of the stairs? I just want to ask you a few questions then we’re going to do some shots of the shop itself.’

As interviewer-cum-presenter he was going to remain out of shot. If necessary he could get Colin to insert one or two angles of himself later. They always took a few interviewer shots in case.

‘So, Mr Barker, how long have your family owned number one Church Street?’

Colin, with the camera, had positioned himself beside him; Joe had pinned a mike to Stan’s tie. Stan had the look of a man facing a firing squad.

‘My grandfather bought it just after the war.’ He hesitated. ‘The old house was split into two and turned into shops about the turn of the century, I reckon. The lad as owned this half never come back. His wife wanted shot of the place so it was going for a good price.’

‘And what kind of a shop was it then?’

Mark’s question seemed to floor him. He hesitated, then he shrugged. ‘Butcher. He was a butcher, my granda.’

They were going to have to extricate every word. It was like drawing teeth.

‘And what happened next?’

‘He weren’t well, so he suggested my dad took it over. Well, he didn’t want to be a butcher so he said no. They got a man in to manage it. Old Fred Arrow. He only lasted a year.’

Silence. Stan’s eyes were riveted to the microphone baffle on top of the camcorder.

‘And what happened then?’ Mark prompted quietly. Colin moved smoothly to one side, stepping over the trailing cable, changing the angle.

‘He said he weren’t going to stay another day in the place. Hated it, he did. Said it were haunted. He said he saw Dave Pegram – that’s the lad as was killed in the war – standing on the stairs …’ He broke off and the look he shot over his own shoulder was one of pure terror. Colin smiled. Yes!

‘Well, he went and so did the next chap and then another butcher opened up down the street and Da thought he’d pack it in. So he tried to sell the place. No one was interested. Not as a butcher’s. Then a woman came along in about 1950. She wanted to run it as a bakery. Fancy cakes and things she sold. She lasted a year – maybe a bit longer, but then she saw Dave as well –’

‘When you say she saw Dave,’ Mark interrupted smoothly, ‘would she have recognised him?’

‘No.’ Stan shook his head vigorously. ‘She weren’t local. She’d never met him.’

‘But she described him?’

Stan shrugged. ‘On the stairs, she said. And upstairs. She had a flat up there, above the shop. There were three rooms in them days and then there’s an attic, too. She said he used to walk up and down all night. She’d lie there listening and she could hear him pacing up and down. You might well shiver, young lady!’ He addressed Alice suddenly who, dressed in jeans and a skimpy T-shirt had hugged herself with a shudder as she stood nearby with Mark’s clipboard clasped importantly to her chest. The goose-pimples on her arms were clearly visible.

Mark sighed. It didn’t matter. They could cut that bit.

‘I take it she checked there was no one there?’

‘She wouldn’t go up there. She left. Halfway through the lease, she upped and left. After that there was a whole load of different people. Dress shop. Hardware. Another baker. Bikes. A little tea shop once. None of them stayed.’

‘And I understand you asked for the shop to be exorcised?’

Stan looked uncomfortable. ‘Stupid business. But nobody would take it on after my Da died, so I got the old rector up here. We reckoned if Dave had never had a proper burial wherever he died, poor bastard, perhaps a few prayers and that would sort him out.’

‘And did it?’

The camera moved closer, focusing on Stan’s face.

He shook his head. ‘No. It wasn’t Dave, was it. We’d said the prayers for the wrong bloke. His son turned up in the town one day to see where ’is dad had lived. Turned out he hadn’t died at all – or not till years later! He’d gone to Canada with someone else’s missus!’

A snort of laughter from Alice broke the tension abruptly. Joe and Colin both glared at her. Mark continued soberly: ‘So, what happened after that?’

‘Well, we thought maybe the prayers would work anyway, but the noises got worse.’ Stan looked down suddenly as though afraid to stare any longer into the camera lens. ‘Much worse.’

Mark found his mouth had gone dry. The question he was about to ask died on his lips. There was a long silence. Colin glanced at him with a frown. He stopped filming. ‘That’s great. Do you want any more, Mark?’

Mark fished in his pocket for a handkerchief and mopped his face with it. ‘Yeah. I do. We need to come up to the present. Why you’re trying to sell it again now.’

Stan shrugged. He shifted uncomfortably as Joe moved in to adjust the microphone clip and Colin started filming again. ‘There’s always noises. People walking up and down.’

‘And at what point,’ Mark took a deep breath, ‘did you decide that the house was haunted by Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General?’

Stan stared round wildly. For a moment Mark thought he wasn’t going to answer, but he turned back to the camera and speaking fast and confidentially he started on an explanation which sounded, Mark thought suddenly, just a bit too rehearsed.

‘Him – the Witchfinder – he’s been seen in all sorts of places in the town. And they’ve seen him up at Hopping Bridge and at the Thorn at Mistley. That’s named after him, you know. The Hopping Bridge. So, why not here, too? The worst place is in the Indian across the road. Used to be the Guildhall or some such, that little place where they tried them. The witches. Well, I thought to myself, supposing it’s him here. And it was.’ He stopped almost triumphantly.

‘How do you know it was him?’ Mark glanced down at Joe, who had resumed his position slightly behind him, on one knee, second microphone in hand. Joe raised an eyebrow.

‘’Coz I do. I seen ’im.’

Mark wasn’t sure whether the shifty look in the man’s eyes was because he was lying or because he was afraid to admit the sighting.

‘Can you describe him for us?’

‘Tall. Wearing large boots. A pointy sort of hat. And a goatee beard. Everyone as sees ’im says he’s got a goatee beard.’

‘And he was here in this house?’

‘On the stairs. Right behind where I’m standing.’

He turned and they all followed his gaze to the point where the uneven oak risers disappeared around the corner. As Colin focused in carefully and panned the camera across the breadth of the stairs, Alice gave a small whimper.

Mark persevered. ‘And was there a historical connection between Matthew Hopkins and this building?’

‘He walked the witches here.’ Stan folded his arms defiantly. ‘Up and down. All night. Didn’t let them sleep. In the end they was so muddled they didn’t know what they was saying. He’d get a confession out of them, then they’d be packed off to the dungeons in Colchester Castle.’

‘What a bastard!’ Alice’s voice was shrill.

‘Cut!’ Mark brought his hand down sharply in a chopping motion. ‘Alice, one more interruption and you’re going home!’

Joe turned to his daughter with a frown. ‘Get a grip, Alice. You knew what this job was. Groovy, I believe you said!’

Alice shuffled across to the counter. She was scowling. ‘Sorry.’

Mark looked back at Stan. ‘So, having decided the building was haunted by Cromwell’s witchfinder, you decided to cut your losses and sell it. But no one wants to buy, is that right?’

Stan nodded gloomily. ‘Trouble is, the place is falling down. It needs all sorts of repairs. The roof leaks.’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t afford to keep it on. Don’t want it. No way. And I need the money. I thought people would like a haunted house. Someone told me there was a market for such like. But, no one has gone for it yet.’

Joe glanced at Mark and winked. So, they had finally got there. The old bugger was making it up. He thought he’d get a better price for the shop if it had a famous ghost. Mark hid his irritation. This wouldn’t do a lot for the credibility of the programme.

‘Thanks, Stan. I think that’s all we need for now.’

‘Right.’ Stan moved away from the stairs with alacrity. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then. Just you remember I want you out of here by tomorrow. There’s a new tenant moving in Monday.’

‘Stan!’ Mark called suddenly as the old man moved towards the door. ‘What about the other part of the house. The shop next door. Isn’t that haunted, too?’

Stan shrugged. ‘Never heard that it was. They only walked the witches here, see.’ He jerked his thumb towards the stairs. ‘Never took them to the nicer side of the house. That’s where the family lived. Couldn’t hear them scream from that side of the house!’

There was a long silence after he had gone.

Colin eased the heavy camera off his shoulder and put it down with a groan as Alice closed the door behind their interviewee and stood watching him walk out of sight.

‘Christ, only one more day! I thought we’d got a week at least,’ Mark complained as Joe began to coil up his cables. ‘He told me it’s going to be an end-of-line discount shop, this and that, probably most of it fallen off the backs of lorries – just till Christmas. You’d think they could give us a bit longer.’

‘We can do it.’ Colin retrieved the clipboard from Alice. ‘If we spend the whole day at it tomorrow – and there’s always tonight, of course.’ He grinned at her. ‘After all, ghosts appear at night, don’t they?’ He sighed. ‘I was more worried about his remarks about ghosts being a selling point. What do you think? Have we wasted the whole afternoon? If he’s made all this up, the programme has gone. Damn! If he hadn’t said that!’

‘We’ll cut that bit,’ Joe said. He was lighting up a cigarette.

Mark shook his head slowly. ‘We’d still know he’d said it.’

‘I think he’s telling the truth.’ Alice hauled herself up onto the counter and sat, swinging her legs. ‘That last bit was awful – how they couldn’t hear them scream in the other half of the house.’

Mark shrugged. He was inclined to agree with Alice. ‘The trouble is, he’s after a quick sale. But perhaps it’s backfired on him a bit. People like ghosts, but not these particular ghosts. Not to live with. I’m afraid the shop’s history, if it’s true, will put purchasers off. Still,’ he paused and gave a wry grin, ‘I suppose when one thinks about it, for our purposes, it could add credibility to the film.’ He walked across to Alice. ‘Let’s see the interview list. We’ve got two more today. Out and about. I wonder if we should reschedule them and concentrate on this place for now. There’s a couple more tomorrow. That’s fine. We can do atmosphere here. Then we want corroboration and a few shots of Colchester Castle and its dungeons – you checked for permissions for that, Alice? Good. Then that should about do it. Nice piece. OK, folks. Let’s get some film in, of the attic and the first floor. The shadows are moving round a bit now. It’ll look a bit more spooky. That’s what Emma called it. Spooky. And that was unprompted.’ He smiled at the recollection. ‘Then we can get some street shots. OK?’

As they busied themselves collecting camera, lights and clipboard a shadow appeared on the staircase by the newel post in the corner where the dusty oak steps disappeared out of sight. Alice glanced round sharply. But it had gone almost as soon as it had appeared.

None of them noticed the sound of footsteps on the dirty boards upstairs.

9

Out at sea the wind had dropped. The waves rose and fell in an uneasy swell, lapping around the Gunfleet Sands. On the shore a man walking his dog in the last of the light along the beach at Frinton stopped and stared at the North Sea. Where, minutes before, he had seen the distant horizon wreathed in a rack of stormy cloud and the waves breaking over the shallows, suddenly he could see nothing. He frowned uneasily. The sky was changing colour as he watched. It was turning a thick dirty yellow. The air was becoming colder and suddenly he could smell deep ocean currents and salt, the smell of northern seas, the smell of the ice floes. The man’s dog noticed. It had abandoned its excited sniffing of the weed and shells on the sand and was standing beside him, staring out as he was. It lifted a front paw, pointing, its ears cocked, then glanced up at him, seeking reassurance. The man shrugged his shoulders uneasily. ‘Time to go home, boy,’ he said quietly. The dog needed no second telling. With an unhappy yelp it turned tail and headed towards the low cliffs and the greensward above. Within minutes the mist had reached the edge of the beach. The cold clammy air lapped at the man’s heels. In it he could hear echoes of different places, different times. The distant call of a horn, the shouts of angry men. He turned for a second, terrified; he had imagined it, of course. The smell of the haar, and the swiftness of its arrival, had unnerved him.

Just for an instant he wondered if he could see the curved cruel beak of a boat surging in on the tide. But no, there was nothing there.

As he turned away to follow his dog up the cliff he shivered with fear. The evil was in the mist.

Behind him it swept in along the coast and around into the estuary heading up river towards Mistley and Manningtree. Within minutes the whole peninsula was shrouded in cold, clammy fog.

10

Saturday night

‘You have done what?’

Piers stared at Emma with disconcerting intensity.

‘I’ve made an offer. The cottage in Mistley.’ She had arrived back home just before ten to find him sitting alone in the roof garden listening to the soft strains of a string quartet, a glass of white wine on the wrought-iron table near him. The cats were asleep on the sofa swing. The hot night was velvet up here, not black, no London night was black. It was bitter, dark orange, scented with traffic fumes and chargrilling from dozens of terraces and rooftops and flowers from the park and the squares and a thousand small expensive gardens. A breath of cold wind trailed past them and was gone, leaving them staring at one another in silence.

Piers sat down and reached for his glass. ‘Forgive me, Emma, but I thought I heard you say you had bought a cottage. I must be going mad.’

‘You did hear me, Piers.’ Her confidence was evaporating fast. She sat down beside him and kicked off her sandals. Her ankle was still slightly swollen. ‘You will love it, I promise. I had to make the decision. There was someone else after it.’ She rubbed her face with her hands, exhausted after the long drive. ‘Can I have some wine?’

‘We’d both better have some wine.’ Piers’s voice was tight with anger. ‘Then perhaps you can explain.’

But how could she explain? The certainty. The fear of losing it. The knot of panic-stricken, illogical and desperate emotions which were tearing her apart made no sense to her, either.

‘You are out of your mind!’ was his terse comment when she had at last finished her rambling account of the day.

‘Probably.’ She stared after him as he went to lean on the parapet. ‘I had to do it, Piers. Don’t go on asking me why. I don’t understand myself. I know it doesn’t make sense. I know I’m mad. It’s just –’ She paused. ‘I knew the house. It was as though I knew every inch inside and out.’

‘And you decide to buy every house you’ve ever visited?’

‘No, of course not!’

‘Then why this one?’

Emma shook her head ‘Because it was home. It was as though I had been there before. Not just in my childhood. I only ever saw the outside then, from the road. I knew every tree, Piers. Every beam in the walls. I can’t explain it.’ She was trying not to cry. Leaning back in the chair, she stared up at the sky. The silence lengthened.

‘I’m going to bed, Em.’

She hadn’t realised that Piers had moved away from the wall. He was standing in front of her, looking down at her face. His own was deep in shadow, hiding his anger. ‘Where would you get the money from, Em? Have you thought about that?’

‘The money is not the problem, Piers. I have my father’s trust fund and I will use my own investments. I can afford it. I’m not asking you to contribute.’

‘I’m glad to hear it!’ He took a deep breath. Several seconds of silence stretched out between them. ‘Don’t forget that your ma and Dan are coming to lunch tomorrow. Perhaps they can talk some sense into that silly little head, eh?’ He stooped and kissed her hair. ‘See you in the morning.’

She didn’t move. Blinking back tears, she stared up at the sky again. For all the affectionate words she had heard the steely undertone. There would be no compromise over this one. Why had she ever hoped there would?

Sniffing miserably, she staggered to her feet and reached for the wine bottle. The wooden boarding under her bare feet was still warm. She could smell the luminous white flowers of the jasmine growing in the tub near the French doors. A dark shape flitted out of the shadows near her and she heard a loud purr. One of the cats had woken up. Bending, she picked him up and lifted him up onto her shoulder. Her eyes had filled with tears again. Wine glass in hand, she climbed into the swing seat and lay back. In seconds Max was joined on her knees by his sister, Min, cuddled up into the crook of Emma’s arm. In ten minutes, Emma was asleep.

As she began to dream first one cat, then the other, slid out of her arms and fled through the scented shadows, in through the French doors and out of sight.

If the old lady’s hiding place were discovered, she would die. There would be no escape. She pushed herself further back against the old brick wall and held her breath, aware of her heartbeat thundering in her ears.

‘We know you’re there, Liza.’ The voices were closer now. Women’s voices. Soft. Insinuating. ‘Come out and talk to us. You know it is what you have to do. It is the will of Christ.’

She put her hands over her ears and pressed hard, fighting to escape their words. If she didn’t make a sound. If she stopped breathing. If her heart ceased its infernal din, she would be safe. They would never find her here. Never.

‘Liza!’ They were closer now. At the gate. ‘Liza, why make it harder for yourself? Surrender to us, make your confession before Almighty God. He will be merciful. Come, Liza. We know you’re here!’ The voices were growing louder, echoing in her head, coming from every side now.

Liza!

Liza!

Liza!

Almighty God will be merciful, Liza …

All you have to do is repent Liza …

She could feel the sweat, ice cold between her shoulder blades and under her breasts. Her stiff, swollen hands were clenched into tight, white-knuckled balls, her nails cutting deep into her palms.

Come out, Liza!

They were laughing.

Pray, Liza …

It’s your turn, Liza …

With a start Emma sat up, feeling the perspiration cold on her body. She was shaking with fear. It took several seconds before she realised she was still outside on the roof terrace. She staggered to her feet and went to lean on the parapet, staring down towards the patch of darkness which was the garden square, trying to steady herself, aware of the noise of her heartbeat thundering in her ears. It was only a nightmare, for God’s sake, sparked off by her row with Piers. Stupid bad dream!

She glanced down at her hands gripping the rail they had added on top of the wall when they moved into the flat. They were shaking. She could actually see them trembling as her fingers clung to the cold metal. With a frown she forced herself to let go and turned towards the French doors.

She stood for a long time under the shower, her face upturned to the sharp drumming of the water, letting it drive out the fear. Then she wrapped herself in a huge towel and went into the kitchen.

‘Emma?’ Piers found her there an hour later. He turned on the light. ‘Come to bed, sweetheart. We’ll discuss the cottage in the morning.’

‘There’s nothing to discuss.’ She rubbed her face wearily. ‘It’s done. The offer is made.’

‘And can be withdrawn. You haven’t signed anything.’

‘No, but –’

‘We’ll talk about it in the morning, Em. Come on.’ He reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘Maybe we can compromise. A cottage might be fun. One day. We could drive around a bit. Get some ideas.’

She sensed a softening of his attitude and glanced at him quickly. ‘Do you mean that? You’ll think about it?’

‘I’ll think about it.’ Turning off the light, he led her towards the bedroom.

Peggy and Dan were late for lunch. When they followed Emma out onto the roof, Piers was ensconced on the swing seat with a pile of newspapers, the wine already opened, and a half-empty glass beside him on the table.

‘Sorry, darling, we couldn’t find anywhere to park.’ Peggy kissed Emma on the cheek and threw herself down on one of the cushioned chairs. Dan picked up the bottle, checked the ice-cold, clouded glass to see how much was left and began to pour. He was a stout, fresh-faced man with white short-cropped hair and vivid blue eyes. Having retired at fifty from the City, he had spent the last ten years in a new career as a wine importer, specialising in small, select vineyards known only to a very exclusive group of connoisseurs.

‘Not bad stuff.’ He topped up Piers’s glass after he had done the others. ‘Good year.’

‘I thought so.’ Piers folded his paper and put it aside. ‘So, how are you both?’

‘Good.’ Peggy grinned. ‘But our news is very boring. I want to hear yours. Did you go and visit the cottage yesterday?’ She looked from one to the other expectantly.

Piers scowled. ‘So, Em told you about it, did she?’

‘Emma rang to say you might go and see it.’ Peggy frowned. ‘I know she said you wouldn’t consider it, Piers, but –’

‘She said that too, did she?’ Piers stood up. He went to lean on the parapet. ‘Perhaps you would like to remind her of the fact, Peggy.’

‘Piers!’ Emma had followed them out onto the terrace with a bowl of olives in her hand. She shook her head. ‘Ma doesn’t want to be dragged into this. Nor does Dan.’

‘Dragged into what exactly?’ Dan sat down on the chair next to Peggy’s. He leaned forward expectantly, his elbows on his knees. ‘Come on. Tell me. What’s this all about?’

‘I went to see a cottage on my own as Piers wouldn’t come,’ Emma said, passing him an olive. ‘And I liked it a lot.’

There was a short silence.

‘So, you are going to see it too?’ Dan asked cautiously. He was looking at Piers.

‘No.’ Piers drained his glass. ‘And in spite of that fact, in spite of me saying I don’t want a cottage at the moment because we’re too busy and we can’t, actually, afford it, in spite of all that,’ he paused for dramatic effect, ‘she put in an offer.’

There was a profound pause, then Emma turned to him. ‘You may not be able to afford a cottage,’ she said quietly, ‘but as I told you last night, I can.’ There was a further moment’s awkward silence.

‘I’ve got the particulars here.’ She stood up and disappeared inside for a moment. When she returned she had a sheaf of estate agent’s details in her hand. ‘It probably doesn’t look that special on paper, but it is.’

‘Why don’t we all run down there and see it?’ Dan drained his glass and held it out to Piers for more as Peggy took the A4 sheets from her daughter and began to read them. ‘What about next weekend? It sounds like a fun excursion to me.’

‘For you, perhaps.’ Filling the glass, Piers put the bottle down and turned to lean over the railing, staring out across the rooftops. ‘If Emma wants this place, that’s up to her. I don’t and I see no point in wasting a day of my life trailing off to see it. If we bought a cottage I would want it to be in Normandy or Brittany. Not, I repeat not, in Essex.’

Emma shrugged. ‘So much for mutual discussion.’

He swung round. ‘Excuse me? What discussion did you engage in before you made an offer for this place, pray? You went knowing my views. And you decided to buy it knowing my views.’ His voice rose slightly.

Dan and Peggy glanced at each other. Peggy leaned forward and touching Emma’s arm she frowned and shook her head. ‘Let’s change the subject,’ she said softly. ‘I think you two need to talk about this on your own later. Come on, I’ll give you a hand in the kitchen.’ She led the way in through the doors.

Emma followed slowly. She had picked up the estate agent’s details from the chair upon which her mother had left them. ‘I have to have it,’ she said as they went through into the kitchen. ‘I don’t know why.’

Peggy turned. ‘You don’t know why?’ She scanned her daughter’s face.

Emma shook her head. ‘I made the offer because I was in a complete panic in case I lost it. It’s pretty, but not especially so. I’ve seen prettier. It’s not in particularly good condition. The garden is too big for a holiday cottage and Piers hates the idea. I should tear this up –’ she waved the papers in front of Peggy’s face – ‘and forget all about it. Even the estate agent thought I was mad.’

‘But?’ Peggy’s eyes were fixed on her face.

‘But! I couldn’t be rational about it. From the first moment I saw the ad in Country Life, I knew I was going to live there.’ She opened the fridge door and brought out a plate covered in foil. ‘Mummy, this is weird. I know it more than anyone.’

Peggy frowned thoughtfully. ‘You’re prepared to risk your relationship with Piers over this house?’

Her daughter nodded. She was near to tears.

‘Take a day off next week. I’ll come with you. Dan too, if you’ll let him. And we’ll go and see it again.’

‘Tomorrow?’ Emma looked up thoughtfully. ‘I’ll call in sick. I am sick!’ She looked round wildly, found a roll of kitchen paper sitting on the draining board, and tearing off a sheet she blew her nose. ‘Can you get someone to look after the shop?’

Peggy nodded. ‘I’ll ring Edward. He’s always willing to do a day there for me.’ Edward was her next-door neighbour, a retired colonel whose heart had been soundly broken when Dan had arrived on the scene.

‘Don’t tell Piers,’ Emma pleaded suddenly.

‘No. I won’t.’ Peggy sighed. ‘But I think you should, Emma. What you and Piers have here is too good to lose, sweetheart. It really is.’

11

Sunday morning

Mike had walked over to the church early. After the early fog it was a glorious day and he could smell new-mown grass from the churchyard where Bill Standing, in his job as groundsman, had been trimming round some of the old graves. A retired professional gardener, Bill liked nothing more than to mow the grass and trim the hedges, training the cascades of rambling roses which grew over the lych gate and across the wall into a glorious patchwork of pink and red. He denied, however, having had anything to do with the mowing in the rectory garden, and had, to Mike’s certain knowledge, never set foot inside the church itself. To Mike, this last information had been an amazing piece of news. He didn’t understand it at all, especially as the old man seemed so fond of the place. Mike stopped at the gate and raised his hand in greeting. One day he would love to talk at length to the old boy, who, he suspected, was a fount of local knowledge and wisdom, and ask him why he wouldn’t go into the church, but so far his attempts to engage Bill in conversation had met with little success.

Bill had been staring down towards the estuary, a worried frown on his face. Mike followed his gaze. There was nothing to see but the bright strip of water and a few wheeling gulls. As Mike watched he shook his head thoughtfully and turned away. The expression on his face was grim. Mike paused and called his name. Bill glanced up, nodded, and turning the mower trundled it off in the opposite direction. Mike shrugged and paused to glance round the churchyard instead. The weathered headstones were mostly illegible now. The salt-laden east winds off the estuary had long ago beaten the inscriptions into indecipherable lichen-crusted anonymity, but there was a quiet warmth in the shelter of an August morning which made it seem a good place to lie in peace.

He opened the gate and walked up the path. The church was already unlocked, one of the churchwardens there before him, making ready for the service. Donald James, who had retired three years before from his position as manager of one of the oldest banks in Colchester, was carrying prayer books through from the vestry and laying them out on the shelf by the door. ‘Morning, Rector.’ Donald smiled at him. ‘Shall we leave the door open and let the sunshine in?’

Mike obligingly pushed the door back as far as it would go. The limed oak with its medieval ironwork groaned slightly as the sunlight hit the grey stone floor.

‘That’ll be enough books, Donald. I doubt if we’ll get very many.’ Mike shrugged. ‘Pity. But it is the holidays. Several of our regulars are away.’ He walked on up the aisle towards the vestry. The small room smelled of books and the old musty hassocks someone had stacked in a corner, rather than throw them away. Mike hesitated in the doorway, then he turned back and walked on towards the chancel. Kneeling on the top step before the altar he gazed up at the cross, composing himself, drawing his thoughts together and, finally, beginning to pray.

Behind him Donald moved quietly between the pews to pick up some fallen rose petals from the carpet beneath the pulpit. He glanced round as a shadow darkened the doorway for a moment and recognising the figure raised a hand in greeting. Judith Sadler was Mike’s lay reader. A tall, dark-haired woman in her early forties, she was wearing a severely cut navy trouser suit and a pale-blue shirt with what looked suspiciously like a dog collar. Donald frowned as she headed up the aisle. It would probably not occur to her to leave the rector alone until he had finished praying. Sure enough, she was already speaking when she was several yards from him.

‘Good morning, Mike. What a glorious day!’ Her voice cut Mike’s prayers off in mid-flow. He opened his eyes and sent up a quick last petition. For patience. His predecessor seemed to have thought a great deal of Judith and had recommended her as lay reader very highly. He had not disclosed until later that he had not endorsed Judith’s powerful ambition to become a priest herself and that his lack of recommendation had contributed to the Director of Ordinands turning her down for selection, something which Judith was not going to forget or forgive.

Mike rose to his feet and turned with a smile. ‘Good morning, Judith.’ Ushering her ahead of him towards the vestry so that they could robe in good time he saw out of the corner of his eye that a stranger had entered the church. That was a good sign. He was closely followed by two or three other figures momentarily silhouetted against the bright sunlight. Perhaps he had underestimated the size of the congregation after all.

Several times during the service Mike found himself looking at the unknown man who had seated himself three-quarters of the way down the aisle on the left. He was alone. A youngish man, perhaps in his mid-thirties, he had short cropped hair and a long, lugubrious face. Although he listened intently to Mike’s sermon and stood or sat in the right places Mike noticed he took no active part in the service. He did not pray out loud, he did not appear to be singing the hymns and he did not come up to take communion.

Perhaps he was a tourist, curious about the church? He did not have the appearance of an unhappy or troubled soul, but one couldn’t always tell. It was not entirely surprising when at the end of the service he saw the man hanging back, obviously hoping for a private word. After Mike had shaken hands with his last parishioners and seen them stroll out into the sunlight, he turned towards the man and they walked slowly together along the side aisle, out of earshot of Donald and Judith.

‘Mark Edmunds.’ The stranger held out his hand. ‘I’ve been staying up here for a few days. You may have noticed us. We’ve been filming in one of the shops at the end of the road here.’

Mike shrugged. ‘Sorry, I must have missed you. What are you filming?’

‘A documentary. About ghosts.’

‘Ah.’ Mike scanned the other man’s face. ‘And you want a quote from the church?’

‘I wouldn’t turn one down if it was offered.’ Mark gave a fleeting smile. ‘But that’s not actually why I’m here.’ They had drifted to a standstill beside a memorial to men of the parish who had died in the First World War. ‘Presumably you believe in ghosts? That is part of your job, isn’t it?’ Mark slid his hands into his pockets.

Mike nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes,’ he said cautiously. ‘I do believe in them. But I have to admit I have never seen one. And I have never been consulted professionally about one. Do you have a problem?’

Mark shrugged. ‘It’s daft. We’re making a film, as I said, about the old Barker shop. I think the old boy who is trying to sell it is massaging the truth quite a bit, to be honest. But there are masses of stories about things that have happened there. We’ve filmed some interviews, misty evening scenes, shadows, atmosphere, several hours last night, you know the sort of thing.’ He paused, staring up at the neatly cut lettering on the wall plaque, name after name of young men slaughtered for their country.

‘And?’ Mike put in quietly. ‘Something has happened you didn’t foresee?’

Mark gave a wry grin. ‘Exactly.’

He had left the others in the pub shortly after nine, the night before, pleading a headache, and walked slowly back up the hill towards the bed and breakfast, relieved to be away from the noise and smoke of the public bar where they had found a small round table on which to balance their plates of steak and chips. The two late afternoon interviews had gone well. One had been with a woman who had been employed as a cleaner in the shop some twenty years ago. Her story had been recalled in a voice of calm certainty which had reassured and convinced them all. And her facts had more or less backed up Stan’s more lurid tale. She had heard the footsteps on several occasions. She had thought she had seen a figure lurking on the staircase and she had felt uncomfortable going into the shop early in the mornings, especially in the winter when she had had to unlock the door and turn on all the lights, conscious that she was the only person there. The flat had not been used, it appeared, since the flight of the cake-making lady in the fifties. In the end the cleaning lady had given in her notice and had not been back since. They had interviewed her against the backdrop of the river. The second interviewee had not minded doing his bit in the shop itself, but like Stan he declined to go upstairs. He had gone in as an electrician about five years before and had been forced to work most of the day in the upper room, putting in some new wiring. At one point he had turned round and found himself face to face with the man with the goatee beard. The apparition had only lasted seconds but it had been enough. Another electrician had had to be found to complete the job. The language with which he had described his feelings had been fruity to say the least. It had reduced Alice to helpless delighted giggles and made Joe wince. They would have to bleep much of the interview. And now they had left two cameras rolling on long play in the upstairs room.

Mark had strolled on up the hill, feeling better in the fresh air; appreciating the cool soft breeze scented with salt and tar and mud which was blowing up off the river. He let himself into the house, a huge rambling Edwardian pile with masses of rooms for guests and, as they had discovered, the most wonderful full English breakfasts, and climbed the stairs to his room. A shower, an early night and hopefully tomorrow they would find something interesting on the silently rolling film.

He fell asleep almost at once, one arm crooked under the pillow, the other across his face and within minutes he was dreaming. He was running along a narrow road in the dark, the mud squelching under his feet, and he could hear the sound of a horse galloping behind him. He ran faster, gasping for breath, sweat pouring off him. The hedges on either side of the lane were high and he couldn’t see where he was going. He blundered into a puddle and then another, desperately trying to keep his feet, aware that the horse was gaining on him fast. Dear God, it was going to catch him. He was searching frantically for a break in the hedge where he could get off the road and hide but the hedges were thorn – the branches were reaching towards him, tearing his clothes, interlaced into an impenetrable wall. He heard a shout behind him. Then another. The crowd were following the horse. He could hear them whistling, baying for his blood, his and that of the woman he was trying to save. He tried to force himself to run faster, but his strength was failing fast. Somehow he had to hide her. Somewhere. There must be somewhere. He could see her beside him now. She was running with him, her hair slipping out of her hood, her long skirts tangling between her legs. She had lost a shoe and she was crying. Then he heard her scream. And it was the same scream he had heard in the shop. In his nightmare suddenly he was there, standing in the middle of the upstairs room, and he was listening to a woman’s terrified, agonised scream …

Mark had awoken drenched in sweat and panting, and switching on the lamp reached for the wristwatch he had left on the bedside table. It was still barely ten o’clock.

It was a long time before he fell asleep again. This morning when he woke he had found that his first thought had been to find the local clergyman.

Mark took a deep breath and turned back to Mike.

‘You know practically every old house round here claims to be haunted either by a witch or by the Witchfinder General?’

Mike raised an eyebrow. ‘A slight exaggeration. But I know there are a few such claims. A piece of history like that leaves its mark on a community.’

‘And it’s good for the tourist trade.’

‘Indeed.’ Mike glanced at him sideways. ‘May I ask what it is that has happened to make you seek me out?’

‘Nightmares.’ Mark shrugged.

‘And you think this would be the domain of the church rather than the doctor?’

Mark ran his hand through his hair. ‘I’m not neurotic. I normally sleep like the dead.’ He paused and exhaled sharply, eyes closed. ‘Not a happy choice of phrase, perhaps. I sleep well. I’m in good health. The only dead which normally give me nightmares are deadlines.’ He gave a humourless chuckle. ‘It has only happened since we came here. Last night –’ he shook his head – ‘and the night before, I was running, hiding, trying to hide someone, then, in the dream,’ he paused, finding it hard to speak, ‘I was upstairs. In the shop. And I heard a scream. I can’t get the sound of those screams out of my head.’

Mike felt a small cold shiver tiptoe down his spine. ‘Does this fit in with the history of the shop?’ he asked gently.

‘Maybe. We’ve been told Hopkins walked some of the witches there.’

‘Walked them?’

‘Up and down, all night. He practised sleep deprivation. A very effective form of torture. Proper torture was illegal in England, you understand, except where treason was suspected. This was his speciality. No mess. No equipment needed.’ He shivered. ‘But they wouldn’t have screamed. Would they? Not just for walking?’

Mike did not reply immediately. Staring at the ground he absorbed unseeing the gentle colours of the small, stained-glass window thrown onto the grey stone at their feet. ‘Would you like to come back to the rectory to discuss this? It’s a serious matter and I would really like to take some time to think. And to pray.’ He looked up and grinned almost apologetically.

Mark shook his head. ‘I can’t now.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’re filming an interview at one o’clock. I’d better get on. Perhaps some other time?’

Mike nodded. ‘Whenever you like. You know where to find me.’ He paused. ‘Mr Edmunds, before you go, you said you filmed through the night. Was there anything on the film?’

Mark smiled wryly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not a thing!’

Mike watched as he made his way to the door and disappeared out into the sunshine.

‘So, what was that about?’ He hadn’t noticed Judith approach. Still wearing her blue scarf and surplice, she was standing only a few feet away, half hidden by one of the pillars.

Mike frowned, suppressing a sudden flash of irritation at the interruption, yet again, of his thoughts. ‘Just a short chat. Nothing to worry about.’

He glanced down the church towards the door. ‘Donald gone?’

Judith nodded. ‘He had to get back. Family duties. Mike, if you’re not doing anything would you like to come back to lunch with me? Just pot luck. Salad. Glass of something?’ She smiled uncertainly, obviously expecting him to decline, and he felt a sudden wave of pity. He knew Judith was lonely. ‘That would be nice. Thanks. I’d love to.’

She lived in a three-bedroomed bungalow in a road of identical houses set in small rectangular plots on the top of the hill behind the town. As Mike climbed out of her car, he looked round at her garden. He had been here many times and knew her life-story intimately. She had lived in this house all her life. Her mother had died when she was at teacher training college and Judith had stayed on to look after her father. His joy had been his garden. From what Mike had heard from others who had known the old man when he was still strong enough to go out and garden, it had been a riot of colour and exuberance in sharp contrast to the grim fifties decor which still adorned the bungalow on the inside. There was little sign of that garden now. Mike could never quite decide whether after the old man’s death in 1996 Judith had deliberately rooted out every sign of beauty and grace, or whether it was merely that she was uninterested in gardening and had not noticed the dying roses and the blighted leaves. As each plant died it was cut down and burned and the gap in the soil was rapidly covered by a thatch of chickweed and goose grass.

Mike followed her inside, resigning himself to the statutory small glass of sweet sherry which, he suspected, she bought just for him. She did not drink herself, but would sit and watch him sip from the thimble-shaped glass with an intensity which always made him very uncomfortable.

The table was laid for two. He found himself picturing her returning to the empty house, had he turned down her invitation, and sadly removing one place setting, and he knew that was why he had said yes, as he had said yes every month or so since he had arrived in the parish.

‘Judith, you’ve lived in this place all your life.’ He followed her through to the kitchen, a habit which irritated her intensely. She would have preferred him to stay neatly in the lounge until she had the meal on the table in the small dining room. ‘Have you come across much interest in the history of the witchfinder?’ He leaned on the counter. A couple of bottles of pills stood there, side by side, and he frowned. He hoped she wasn’t ill. Tactfully he transferred his gaze to the window and stared out at the back lawn. There were no flowerbeds at all now between the grass and the wooden panel fence. The only remotely decorative item left was a single white plastic-covered washing line.

Judith had turned on the electric element under the pan of potatoes which had been waiting ready-peeled on the stove. ‘Matthew Hopkins?’ She opened the fridge and brought out some packets of cold meat. ‘I think most people know who he was.’ Reaching into the drawer for a pair of scissors she sliced the top off each packet in turn and arranged the slices of ham, salami and chicken on a serving dish. ‘Why?’ She glanced at him sharply.

‘I heard he is reputed to haunt various places in the town.’

‘Pubs.’ She turned back to the fridge for tomatoes and a lettuce in a polythene bag. ‘He haunts the pubs.’

Mike grinned. ‘That seems strange, given that he was a puritan.’

‘Quite.’ She threw the lettuce into a bowl in the sink and ran cold water onto it.

‘Do you ever teach about him in school?’ He took another sip from his sherry and tried to stop himself from wincing as the sticky sweetness hit his tongue.

‘I do, actually. I organise a project with Year Fives. I send them off round the place with paper and a pencil and get them to look for a few clues. Then I give them a lesson in more detail. Tell them about the evils of witchcraft. You know the sort of thing. Were you thinking of covering it when you come up to the school?’

‘Good Lord, no.’ Mike shook his head. ‘No, to tell you the truth I was a bit disturbed by something I heard today.’

‘That man who spoke to you in church?’ Judith turned off the tap and stared at him. ‘I knew it. I could see you were worried. He didn’t look like the usual type who gets into that sort of thing, not New Agey or grungey particularly.’

Mike frowned. ‘No, indeed.’

‘What did he say?’

‘You know I can’t tell you that, Judith.’ He smiled to soften the words. ‘But it made me think. Wonder. If there are any genuine –’ he hesitated, trying to think of a word to describe what he had been told – ‘residues of the past.’

‘Ghosts?’ Judith looked astonished. ‘You don’t believe in ghosts?’

He frowned. ‘Of course I do, Judith.’ He paused. ‘And so, as a member of the church, should you. You may not be trained to deal with such matters, but you cannot deny their existence.’

He saw a quick flare of colour in her cheeks and bit his lip. He had not meant his words to sound so like a rebuke. ‘I agree many so-called ghosts are imagination or whatever, but we cannot deny that such unhappy beings exist.’ He put down his glass. ‘Would you like me to take this through?’ Reaching for the plate of meat he gave her a moment to compose herself.

‘I do believe in it,’ she said softly. ‘And in witchcraft. I just didn’t know if you did.’

He swung round. ‘I couldn’t be a priest of the church unless I believed in such things, Judith.’

‘Right.’ She tore the lettuce in half. ‘Well, that’s why I teach them about the Witchfinder General. His methods might have been cruel, but the women he persecuted deserved it. They were evil. I teach all about it to deter the little thugs who are toying with the idea of becoming witches today.’

Mike was standing by the door, plate in hand. He studied her face thoughtfully, trying to hide the shock he had felt at her words. ‘Are you saying that there are still witches round here?’

She nodded. ‘You’d be surprised how many people there are round here who actually claim to be the descendants of witches. They are proud of it! Oh yes, Mike. There are witches. And ghosts. And ghosts of witches.’ She threw the wilting leaves into a wire basket and shook it violently, spattering water around the room. ‘I am only amazed it’s taken this long for them to start crawling out of the slime and heading your way.’

12

Monday

‘Turn right at the signpost. There!’ Emma pointed through the windscreen ahead of them. She took a deep breath. ‘Supposing I hate it this time when I see it?’

Peggy changed gear and slowed the car. She glanced across at her daughter with a smile. ‘You haven’t signed anything, Em. You can still withdraw your offer.’

Emma leaned forward as they drove up the lane, squinting in the hot sunlight. It was almost midday and this time it had taken them nearly three hours to negotiate the traffic-clogged roads out of London. Dan had been left behind to mind the shop, the obliging neighbour, after all, unable to help.

Emma found she was holding her breath. ‘It’s up here on the left. Just round this bend. There.’

Peggy pulled the car off the road and both women climbed stiffly out and stood staring at the cottage. There was a long silence.

‘Well?’ Emma turned to Peggy at last.

‘It’s very sweet. I don’t know if I remember there being so many roses. That’s made it chocolate-boxy.’ Peggy took a deep breath. ‘And the air is heaven! Have you got the keys?’

Emma reached back through the car window. The keys, which they had picked up on the way past the estate agent, were lying on the glove shelf. Will Fortingale had succumbed to his cold and apparently was spending the day in bed, but his assistant had seemed very happy to let them have them for as long as they wanted them. Grasping them tightly, Emma leaned for a moment on the roof of the car. Her heart was thumping uncomfortably.

Glancing round Peggy saw her and frowned. She put her hand on Emma’s shoulder. ‘Are you OK, darling?’

Emma nodded. She was biting her lip. ‘I wish Piers had come too.’

‘I don’t think there was a chance in hell of that happening, Em.’ Peggy sighed. ‘You’ve got to resign yourself to that. If you buy this place it could be the end of you and Piers.’ She scanned her daughter’s face. ‘You do realise that, don’t you?’

Emma shook her head. ‘He’ll come round. He always does. He’s just cross because he didn’t think of it himself. And he wanted to consider a place in France. But what’s the point of that? If we haven’t got a place there, we have a reason to go and stay with Derek and Sue. If we had our own place we’d never see them. He wants to stay with them. So, we shouldn’t get a place near them. That all seems very logical to me!’

Peggy shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Well, come on. Lead the way.’

Emma paused as they stood in the hall, listening, half wondering if she would hear the strange voice calling to her again, but the house was silent, expectant, as though it, like her, was waiting to hear her mother’s verdict.

They spent an hour exploring the cottage and its outbuildings, then they walked out into the garden. ‘I have to admit, it is very sweet.’ Peggy stared round. ‘Idyllic in some ways, but I would have seen you going for something a bit more sophisticated. A bit more modern. And the garden is huge. It’s not a very practical idea, darling. You’ve never done any gardening in your life.’

Emma stared at her. ‘Excuse me! What do you call that place on the roof outside the flat?’

‘Apart from the roof garden.’ Peggy snapped a rose off one of the bushes and sniffed it. ‘But that is all in pots!’

Emma shook her head. ‘And in the pots is earth. And in the earth are plants. And I have tended every one of those plants for the four years that garden has existed. I designed it. I bought the plants and the pots and I created it! Piers never lifted a finger except to buy the furniture he sits on to watch me tend the garden!’

‘Sorry!’ Peggy shook her head. ‘I stand rebuked. OK. So, you have a huge part of your soul craving to be a gardener. But you are an investment analyst with a totally absorbing job in London. How much time would you have for this garden?’

‘I could employ a gardener.’ Emma walked out between the beds. The long grass brushed her bare legs and caught at the buckles of her sandals. ‘Or I could give up London and come and run this place commercially.’ She swung round to face her mother. ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to garden. I want to tidy it and rescue it and make it thrive again. I want to run it as a business.’

‘And Piers?’ Peggy scanned her face thoughtfully. ‘How does he fit into this plan?’

‘He could commute?’ Emma paused and suddenly she smiled, her face radiant, full of mischief. ‘It’s got to work out! Somehow I’ll persuade him. Look at it. It’s so beautiful! It was meant to be!’ She stretched her arms above her head and did a little pirouette. ‘We’ll sort something out. I know we will. This is my home, Ma. This is where I want to spend the rest of my life!’

13

Monday lunchtime

Lyndsey braked sharply and drew to a halt as she saw the green Peugeot backing out into the lane ahead of her. Her bicycle basket was laden with books and the weight made her wobble slightly as she dismounted. She was close enough to recognise the passenger as the brown-haired woman who had been there on Saturday and she frowned thoughtfully. So, she had brought someone for a second opinion.

‘Penny for them!’

She jumped at the voice. A dusty old blue Volvo had coasted to a halt behind her and she was concentrating so hard on the woman in the car, she had failed to hear it. She turned to the balding man at the wheel. ‘Hi, Alex. Sorry! I didn’t hear you.’

‘Just as well I was driving slowly.’ He chuckled. He was fond of this gamine young woman with her quirky ways and passionate, vivid personality. ‘Are you spying, by any chance?’

She smiled. ‘Of course. That woman was here two days ago.’

‘It’s time someone bought the old place. It’ll fall down if they don’t.’ Alex reached for the handbrake and killing the engine he climbed out. He was a tall man, in his early forties, with the high complexion and bleached eyebrows of the very fair. He had light-blue eyes, their clarity emphasised by a short-sleeved blue polo shirt and cream chinos. He pointed to her load. ‘Stick them in the car. I’ll run them back for you. It’s too hot to bike in this weather, never mind with about a hundred books!’

‘I’ve borrowed them from Oliver Dent. He doesn’t mind how many I take as long as I return them.’ Lyndsey lovingly ran a hand over the assorted volumes.

Alex opened the door of the car and she passed him the books. ‘I didn’t know he was a reader,’ he said.

‘He’s got thousands of books. I’ve just got a job cleaning for him once a week. Poor old boy can’t cope up there on his own any more.’

‘Well, I hope you’ve still got time to look after my kids.’ Alex stacked the books safely and slammed the door. A quick glance had shown they all appeared to be about plants and flowers.

‘You know I have.’ She hauled the bike out of the hedge and straddled it. ‘You still want me tonight?’ She babysat for the Wests two or three evenings a week and sometimes looked after the children after school as well.

He nodded. ‘Paula and I are going to supper with someone she’s met on the train.’ He shrugged with a pained look towards the heavens. ‘Networking with knobs on. What did I do to deserve a commuting wife?’

Lyndsey grinned. ‘You know you love being a kept man! If Paula didn’t make all that lovely money in the City you and the kids wouldn’t be able to ponce around in the country having such a good time now, would you!’

‘True.’ He sighed. ‘Not that I’d have chosen redundancy and house husbandry as my preferred career.’ There was a moment’s silence. His face had grown solemn as he thought of the various failed business ideas, the so-hopefully printed cards, the silent phone at home. In seconds his smile returned. ‘Reckon those are rich weekenders, going to buy Liza’s? I wonder if they would employ me to run that place for them? The Simpsons had a decent living from that nursery.’

‘Not from Liza’s they didn’t.’ Lyndsey glanced fondly towards the cottage. ‘That’s why they are selling it. Their money came from their garden centre up in Bradfield. Letting this place to holiday-makers was all they did in the end, and even that was too much hassle. Their son doesn’t want to take it on now they’re retiring and I don’t blame him.’

‘I suppose so.’ Alex sighed. ‘Ah well, I must get on. See you tonight.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve told Sophie and James you’re coming to look after them and I think they’re planning mayhem, so be careful!’

Lyndsey raised a hand as he climbed back into the car. ‘Not to worry,’ she grinned. ‘Mayhem is what I do best.’

14

The others were already there when Mark made his way into the shop. He looked round. ‘No sign of the new tenant yet?’

‘Not a peep.’ Colin was eating a toasted teacake, his fingers shiny with butter. ‘So there’s no one to ask. If we’re quick we can get the extra shots we need upstairs and be out of here before they come! All set?’ He stopped chewing and stared up at the ceiling with a frown. ‘You did check, Joe? It sounds as though there is someone walking about up there.’

They all stared upwards. Alice had gone very pale. Clearly audible, they could hear someone walking slowly across the boards above their heads, the footsteps dragging slightly, one then another board squeaking in sequence as they moved.

Joe gave a soundless whistle. He stubbed out his cigarette in the lid he was using as an ashtray on the counter. ‘I just stuck my head in the room. Maybe there was someone up in the attic. Or in the cloakroom. Shall I have another look?’ He did not seem too keen.

Mark glanced at the stairs. He recognised an extreme reluctance of his own to climb them. Last night, again, he had had the experience of waking suddenly, his heart thudding, the echo of a woman’s scream ringing in his ears. It had for a moment paralysed him with terror as he lay staring up at the ceiling, trying to steady his breathing, aware that he was bathed in sweat and aware too that this time he was too afraid to move, even to reach for the switch on the bedside light.

And now this. He saw Colin watching him, waiting for a decision. ‘Are we going up?’ Mark shrugged. ‘I seem to have a touch of the heebie-jeebies this morning. OK. This is silly. Let’s go. We need to see if we can capture a bit of this atmosphere on film.’ He took a deep breath.

Colin nodded. ‘Want me to go first?’ The Welshman raised an eyebrow, baiting him. The footsteps had stopped. They were all aware of the sound of traffic outside again, almost as though, before, it had not been there.

Mark nodded. He gave a wry grin. ‘If you like.’

‘OK.’ Colin hefted the heavy camera up onto his shoulder.

‘I’m not going up.’ Alice’s voice was shrill. ‘I don’t think any of us should.’

‘Alice.’ Joe’s tone was half reproach, half mocking. ‘Come on. You’re not scared, surely? Great big girl like you!’

Alice blushed scarlet. ‘No! No, of course not. I think this job sucks.’ Tossing the clipboard down onto the counter, she turned towards the door. ‘You don’t need me, anyway. I’m going for a walk.’

‘Alice!’ Joe shouted.

‘Leave her,’ Mark said quietly. ‘It’s getting to her like it’s getting to me. Come on. Let’s go up.’

Colin was already halfway up the stairs when the shop door opened. They turned to see a young woman standing in the doorway. With short dark hair and intensely bright blue eyes she reminded Mark of nothing so much as a woodland elf as she hovered on the threshold, gazing at them.

‘Can we help you?’ Mark turned away from the stairs with something like relief. If the new tenants were arriving they would have to hurry and the sheer number of people on the premises would perhaps do something to help dispel the atmosphere.

Her eyes were enormous. He found himself unable to look away as she took a cautious step inside, leaving the door open behind her. ‘What are you doing?’

Behind him Colin retraced his steps and put the heavy camera down on the counter. Mark smiled and stepped forward, holding out his hand. ‘Mark Edmunds. We have Mr Barker’s permission to be here. I’m sorry. We meant to be finished before you arrived.’

She looked anxious suddenly. ‘You were expecting me?’

‘Well, we were expecting someone.’ Mark dropped his hand as she had ignored it. ‘I gather you want to start stocking the shop as soon as possible? If we could have perhaps just an hour more, we could then get out of your hair.’ He gave her his most charming smile. It was not returned.

‘I am not here to stock the shop.’ There was a slight frown between her eyes. ‘I came because you are here to make trouble for us. For all of us who live here.’

Mark glanced at Colin, who raised an eyebrow and gave a mock scowl. ‘I can assure you, Miss …?’ He paused for her to fill in the name. She ignored the invitation and stood silently, her eyes fixed on his face, obviously waiting for him to continue. He went on, slightly flustered. ‘We have no intention of causing anyone any trouble. And we are here, as I said, with the full permission of Stan Barker.’

‘Stan told me you are here to film the ghosts.’ For the first time her eyes left his face and she glanced past him at the stairs. Mark resisted the urge to turn and follow her gaze.

‘We are making a documentary. One of a series about haunted houses,’ he said guardedly.

‘You have to stop it.’ Her voice was stronger suddenly. She rammed her hands down into the pockets of her trousers – tight-fitting jeans, cut off raggedly below the knee which emphasised the slimness of her figure. ‘You have to!’

‘May I ask why?’ he asked gently. ‘You said we were here to make trouble. I assure you that is not the case. Programmes like this are usually immensely popular –’

‘And stir things up.’

He realised with a jolt that the emotion which was fuelling the brightness of her eyes was anger. ‘It will make no difference to you. You and your friends –’ she glanced witheringly at Joe and Colin – ‘will finish your filming and disappear back to London and never come back here again, and leave us to deal with what you have left behind.’

‘I am sorry you should feel like that.’ Mark kept his voice even. ‘But as I said, the worst you will probably find will happen is an influx of sightseers. I find the locals usually like that. It’s good for the economy.’

‘I’m not talking about sightseers!’ She licked her lips nervously, an infinitesimal darting movement which reminded him of a small reptile. Her tone was dismissive.

‘Then what?’

She held his gaze for a moment, then for the first time she seemed to hesitate. ‘You are stirring things up,’ she repeated.

‘What things?’ Colin put in.

‘The energies …’ She bit her lip. ‘Your interest, the filming, talking about him. It is feeding the energies. I can feel it. The whole town is changing. The atmosphere. The feel of the place. It’s centred here. In this shop.’

‘Why?’ Joe had surreptitiously switched on his mike. The tape was turning.

‘This shop – the site – it has always been a centre. So much happened here.’

‘What happened here?’ Joe asked.

‘He brought the women here. Some of them. It was the house where Mary Phillips lived.’

‘One of the witchfinder’s accomplices?’ Mark nodded.

The three men glanced up towards the ceiling.

She did not appear to notice. ‘Their fear and anger and confusion permeates the walls of this place!’ she cried passionately. ‘Can’t you feel it? No one stays here. No one can bear it. Those women were dragged from their homes, accused, tortured, terrified and killed on the say-so of one man.’

‘That surely is what makes the story of the witchfinder so fascinating,’ Mark put in slowly. ‘The villain is the man who ostensibly was on the side of the right, and the victims are the women who might have possibly been real witches worshipping the Devil, causing all kinds of mischief.’

‘They weren’t!’ She turned on him, her face suddenly hard. ‘They were at worst silly old ladies, not knowing what was happening to them. And the ones who did know were guilty of no more than using herbal medicine and the harmless spells that were part of the recipes in those days.’

Mark nodded. ‘You would make an excellent contributor to our programme. Why don’t you let us film you so that you can put your point of view …’

‘No!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Have you understood nothing I’ve said? You have to stop the programme. You have to go away and forget all about it.’

‘You still haven’t told me why.’ Mark found the memory of the scream coming back suddenly as he leaned against the counter, watching her. ‘If the old ladies were innocent, why should telling their story stir up trouble? Surely they would welcome vindication? And Hopkins himself was a sadistic and violent man by our standards but from what I have read he was sincere in what he believed.’

‘He was paid by the head, Mark,’ Colin put in softly. ‘However sincere, the chap had a good incentive to root out anyone even remotely qualifying for his detection methods.’

‘He was not interested in mercy or justice,’ the young woman put in. ‘And he does not sleep soundly. Neither do his victims. Please, please go away.’

‘We are going.’ Joe gave her a reassuring smile and folded his arms. ‘Today. Don’t you worry, love. We’ll be out of your hair by teatime and away, and all your energies can calm down again.’

‘And you will destroy your film?’ She narrowed her eyes.

‘We’ll think about everything you’ve said, very carefully,’ Mark put in reassuringly. ‘I promise.’

She stood for a moment looking at each man in turn, then she turned and ducked out of the doorway. As she hurried away from the shop they heard someone in the street greet her gaily, ‘Hi, Lyndsey!’ and saw her raise her hand in return.

‘Lyndsey,’ Mark repeated. ‘Remember that. Wow! I wish we’d got that little spiel on tape.’

Joe grinned. ‘We did. But whether you can use it is another matter.’

‘Good man.’ Mark stared thoughtfully after their visitor, then he wandered across and pushed the door shut behind her. ‘You know, I’m inclined to agree with her.’

‘You mean we should stop?’ Colin and Joe stared at him.

Mark shrugged. ‘No, not stop. But I think we are stirring things up. I’m even having nightmares about it. Let’s get that shot upstairs and then we can pack up. Presumably once we’ve gone the atmosphere she was talking about – the vibes – will all calm down again!’

15

Monday evening

‘No!’ Piers was white with anger. ‘I will not see it. I will not talk about it. And I will not – ever – go there. If you go ahead with this, as far as I’m concerned we’re finished. For good!’

Emma was leaning on the rail, staring down across the rooftops towards the distant trees of the garden square. A misty pearlescent light was deepening into darkness around them. She said nothing.

‘Emma?’ Piers’s voice softened. ‘Please, darling. Think. I love you. I don’t want to – I can’t – live without you.’

Wordlessly she turned towards him and he saw that she was crying. He put his arms around her and gently kissed her on the top of her head. ‘I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’ Her face was buried in his shirt-front, but he felt her nod and he tightened his arms. ‘I tell you what. Why don’t we arrange a holiday in the autumn? Go somewhere really exciting. Your choice.’

Still silent, she released herself from his grasp. She bent to pick up a cat. ‘Have you fed them?’ She sniffed into the dark, silky fur.

‘Of course I have. Did Peggy not want to come in?’

‘No. She was tired. It was a long drive.’ Kissing Max’s ear, she set him down on the ground again. ‘I think I’ll have a bath.’

‘OK. Why don’t I bring you a hot drink in bed later?’

She gave him a faint smile. ‘That would be nice. Thanks.’

It was dark when he went inside and closed the French doors behind him. He wandered into the kitchen, wondering what would cheer her up. Tea. Cocoa. Soup. A stiff whisky. ‘Em?’ he called. The sound of bath water running away had finished ages before. ‘Em? What would you like to drink?’

The bedroom was in darkness. ‘Emma? Are you awake?’ He turned on the lamp in the corner. Emma was lying across the bed, her face buried in the pillow. She was wearing grey silk pyjamas. ‘Em?’ he whispered. He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Are you asleep?’

There was no answer.

‘Would you like me to bring you something?’ He waited for several seconds, then with a sigh he turned off the light and crept out of the room.

On the bed Emma stirred. Hugging the pillow she turned over, her dark hair fanned out across the sheets and, in her sleep, she began once more to cry.

She was late into the office and within seconds of sitting down at her desk, she stood up again. Her hands were shaking and she had the worst headache she could remember.

Emma!

The voice was in her head again.

Emma! Buy it! You’ve got to, Emma. You have to come back, Emma!

She had awoken late, drenched in perspiration, her bedclothes tied in knots, but her dreams, if she had had any, were gone beyond recall. Piers had already left, after presumably sleeping on the sofa.

‘You OK, Emma?’ A colleague passing her desk stopped, concerned. ‘You look as though you tied one on last night with a vengeance!’ He laughed.

She glared at him and turned back to her desk, rifling through a drawer for some paracetamol. Then she picked up the phone. ‘Mr Fortingale? It’s Emma Dickson. Are you better?’ She only remembered just in time to ask. ‘I wondered if you had heard back from the Simpsons yet about my offer?’ Grasping the receiver with both hands, she stared unseeing at the computer monitor on her desk as she listened to the muffled voice the other end. She nodded slowly. ‘Good. Thank you. No, I told you, I don’t need a survey. I am instructing my solicitors this morning and as I said, I have nothing to sell. It’s a cash transaction and as the house is empty, hopefully it can all go through very fast indeed.’ She stood for a long time, listening to the whine on the phone after he had hung up, then gently she tipped the receiver back onto its base.

David Spencer looked up from the report he was studying as Emma appeared in the doorway of his office. She had tapped on the open door then hovered, staring in without seeming to see him.

‘Emma?’ He rose to his feet. ‘Is there a problem?’

She frowned, visibly trying to pull herself together and came in, closing the door behind her. ‘I’m giving in my notice, David.’ She stood in front of his desk, not meeting his eye. ‘I’m leaving London.’

‘You are joking!’ David ran his hand through thin, greying hair so that the carefully arranged strands rose in disarray around his head. ‘You can’t – what’s happened? For God’s sake, sit down. You don’t mean it.’

She obeyed him, pulling up a chair, and leaned forward, elbows on his desk, her head in her hands. ‘I do mean it, David. I’m sorry. I’ll work out my notice, of course.’

‘But why?’ He resumed his own seat opposite her. His voice was suddenly gentle. ‘Are you ill?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Mad, perhaps.’ She gave a small, helpless laugh. ‘I’m buying a house in the country and I’m going to work there. I need a break from the City.’

You have to come back, Emma!

The words echoed in her mind for a moment. What was she saying? What was she doing? She was throwing away her career, her relationship, her home, her life. She looked up at David and he noted her pale face and red-rimmed eyes.

‘Is this something to do with Piers? Have you two split up?’

‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, yes, I suppose we have. We will. He thinks I’m mad.’

‘You are. Look,’ he stood up again, ‘don’t say any more, Emma. Go home. You don’t look at all well, if I may say so. Think about this. Take a few days off. Don’t do anything you might regret. Please.’ He leaned forward across the desk and put his hands over hers. ‘You’re good at your job, Emma. Don’t throw it away.’

He watched her go back to her desk through the glass wall of his office. She picked up her bag and her briefcase, stood for a moment staring down at her desk, then left without a word to either of her colleagues, both of whom looked up and spoke to her as she passed. He frowned. There was something very wrong. He stood for several seconds staring down at his phone, then he picked up the receiver and dialled Piers’s direct line.

16

Tuesday afternoon

‘Emma?’ Piers pushed open the front door and pocketing his keys walked through the small white-painted hall into the living room. ‘Are you back?’

The French doors were open and he headed towards them, spotting her at once. She was lying on the swing seat, eyes closed, Max curled in the crook of her arm.

‘Hi, old thing. What are you doing home?’ He sat down on the edge of a chair near her, incongruous in his city suit and smart black shoes, noting that she too was still dressed in her office clothes.

‘I wasn’t feeling too good.’ She opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘What are you doing here yourself?’

‘I had a whole lot of reports to check and I kept thinking of this roof garden and a glass of white wine and how awful it was to be stuck in a glass palace in this heat and I thought, I’m going to play hooky!’ He smiled and climbed to his feet with a groan. ‘I’m going to have a shower and change into something more comfortable. Is there anything I can get you?’

Shaking her head, she closed her eyes again and he watched her for a moment, frowning.

When he came out again some time later she was asleep. Good as his word, he settled down to study the reports, glancing every now and then in her direction as the sun moved round towards the west and the shadow under the canopy where she lay deepened. It was still very hot. He finished a stack of papers, returned them to his briefcase and withdrew another pile. Somewhere below in the busy street he heard the wailing note of a police siren. It sounded for several seconds very close, then rapidly it faded into the distance as the car sped away towards the Cromwell Road.

In her dream Emma stood in the doorway of the cottage, looking round. She was dressed in a black cloak but under it her gown was silk, embroidered with flowers. ‘Liza?’ Her voice was her own, but the words came out strangely, with a soft country burr and unaccustomed words. ‘Liza, where be ye? I’ve brought ye some butter and some posset.’

She moved forward into the kitchen she knew so well. This small dower house on her father’s estate had been given to Liza in her old age as a reward for her care of this wayward young woman and her brother after their mother’s death. The fire was lit and a pot of water was hanging over it. She glanced in. It had nearly boiled dry. No herbs. No vegetables. Taking a thick cloth to pad her hands she lifted it off the hook and setting it down at the edge of the hearth she looked round for Liza’s cats. There were two, adored and spoiled, which the old woman had reared from kittens over twenty years before while she still lived up at the hall. If she was not careful they would steal the butter before Liza had set eyes on it. There was no sign of them.

The table behind her was strewn with flower heads. Two small boxes of dried herbs stood nearby, both open, both spilled. A knife lay on the floor, the small pestle and mortar beside it. Sarah frowned, a frightened chill suddenly settling over her, cold as the mist that drifted in the lane outside and shrouded the church. ‘Liza? Where are you?’ The whisper was scarcely audible. She moved to the foot of the stairs and stared up, her foot on the bottom step. For a moment she couldn’t force herself to move, then as she put her foot forward the door opened behind her.

‘I’m here, my duck.’ Liza was standing there, wrapped in a warm woollen cloak against the mist. She stepped into the room and glanced round, smiling as she saw the gifts lying on the table. ‘That’s kind. I’ll enjoy that.’

‘Where were you, Liza?’ Sarah frowned, still uncomfortable. ‘The water was nearly boiled dry and everything is spilled.’

Liza shook her head. ‘I ran outside. There was somebody in the lane.’ She shrugged. ‘Somebody I didn’t want to see.’

Behind her a cat appeared in the doorway. It mewed and walked up to her, jumped on the table, asking to be petted. She stroked it absently. ‘Sarie, my dear, if anything happened to me, you’d look out for the cats, wouldn’t you? See they was fed and had a home?’

‘Of course I would.’ Sarah caught her hand. ‘What is it, Liza? What’s wrong? Why are you talking like this?’

Liza shrugged. ‘There’s folk out there mean mischief, Sarie. Hopkins’s men. Someone has been bad-mouthing me to him.’

Sarah let out a little cry of anguish. ‘Oh, no! No, Liza. I’d never let that happen. Never. Besides, they would never come for you. Too many people love you.’

Liza gave a toothless grimace. ‘Well, that’s as maybe.’ She put her head on one side. ‘You remember all I’ve taught you, don’t you, Sarie? Never forget it. Never.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll be all right. I’ll keep out of their way. But,’ she laughed hoarsely, patting the cat again, ‘I worry about these two. They were my babies, just like you.’

‘Don’t, Liza. Don’t talk like that!’ Sarah clung to her hand. ‘No one would hurt you. Or the cats. No one …’

‘No one would hurt the cats! No one!’ Emma woke to find she was shouting the words out loud. Piers was bending over her. ‘Emma! Emma, it’s OK. You’ve been dreaming!’ He was holding her hand.

‘The cats!’ She sat up staring round. ‘Where are the cats?’ Suddenly she was crying.

‘The cats are fine.’ Piers stepped back as she swung her legs to the ground.

‘Where? Where are they?’

‘Inside. Max was cuddled up with you. Then you began to shout and he was frightened. They’re both inside somewhere. Em –?’ He watched as she ran across the terrace. She had kicked off her shoes before she lay down and her feet were bare; her hair was dishevelled.

In the living room she stared round. ‘Max?’ She spotted the cat sitting under the coffee table, his tail swishing from side to side. ‘Oh, Max!’ She dived on him, trying to scoop him up into her arms, but he turned towards her, hissing. Lashing out at her in a panic he scratched her viciously across her wrist and the back of her hand before diving out of reach into the kitchen.

‘Leave him, Em. He’s thoroughly frightened. And so are you.’ Piers’s voice changed suddenly as she threw herself down on the sofa, sobbing. ‘What is it, darling? What’s the matter?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know! It was the dream. I was so worried something awful was going to happen to them.’

Piers sat down beside her and put his arm round her. ‘They are both fine. Just leave him for a moment. You frightened him when you started to shout. Here, I’ll get something to put on that scratch. It’s bleeding everywhere.’

By the time he had dabbed her wrist with antiseptic and put a sticking plaster over the worst of the laceration, Emma was calm again.

‘So, what was the dream about, can you tell me?’

She shrugged. Leaning back against the sofa cushions she closed her eyes. ‘That’s the silly thing. It’s gone.’

Piers paused, watching her. ‘Em? Aren’t you feeling well? I wondered why you had come home.’

She frowned and put her head forward into her hands for a moment. Then she shrugged. ‘My head is spinning. I think I’ll go and take a shower, Piers.’

‘Perhaps I’d better remind you,’ he said quietly, ‘or are you just not planning to tell me? You gave in your notice this morning.’

She looked up slowly. ‘I hadn’t forgotten. How do you know?’

‘David rang me. He was really worried. He thinks you’re ill. That was why I came home.’

‘Well, I’m not ill.’

‘Then perhaps, just perhaps, you’re off your head.’ His voice had become hard.

She stood up, looking curiously vulnerable in her navy suit skirt and silk shirt with her hair dishevelled and her feet bare. ‘Perhaps I am.’

The atmosphere was suddenly electric. They were on the brink of shouting at one another, saying things they didn’t mean, things that could never be unsaid, and as if sensing it, neither spoke. It was Piers who broke the silence at last. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Em.’

‘No.’ She said it so quietly he barely heard her.

‘You can’t really want to give up your career. All you’ve worked for.’

‘No.’

‘You love that job.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why? Why, Em?’

She shrugged her shoulders, sniffing. ‘I don’t know why.’

‘What are you planning to do?’

‘Run it as a herb nursery.’

Piers stared at her. ‘You mean we are still talking about this darn cottage? I don’t believe it. You were even having nightmares about it just now. That is what you were shouting about, Emma. You were shouting “Liza” when you scared Max. Please, Emma, you can’t do this!’

‘I have to.’

‘You are prepared to throw everything up, everything! To go and live there?’

She nodded.

‘Then you are mad. Totally, completely and utterly off your head.’

She gave a watery smile. ‘On that at least, we agree. I don’t want it to be the end of us, Piers. I really don’t.’

‘How can it not be? I’m a City person, Emma. My life, my job, my friends are all in the City. I can’t … I won’t commute. And I don’t want to spend my weekends somewhere miles out in the country.’

‘People do commute from there. It’s only –’

‘I don’t care how long it takes, or how far it is. I don’t want to do it. I won’t do it.’

‘Then it is the end for us.’ Her tears had dried and her face was white. ‘It has to be. I’m moving down there as soon as the paperwork is done. I’m sorry. I really am. But I have to do it. I have to. It’s mine. It’s where I belong.’

‘You belong here!’ Suddenly he was crying.

‘No. No, I don’t. I don’t, Piers. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Tears were pouring down her face, too. Pushing past him she ran towards the door, leaving him staring after her, sobbing like a child.

It was as she was sitting on the bed, cradling her pillow in her arms, having slammed the door on Piers and run to the bedroom, that she realised both the cats were in there already. Pressed tightly together in the five-inch space under the chest of drawers they were staring at her with huge, terrified eyes.

‘You’re scared,’ she murmured at them miserably. ‘And I’m scared. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t understand anything any more. I don’t understand anything at all.’

17

Wednesday morning

Flora Gordon was waiting for Emma at Planet Organic. She was already drinking an orange juice. Her wildly frizzy blonde hair was if anything more dishevelled than usual, and she had a pile of shopping bags around her feet as she sat on the high stool at the counter.

‘Em?’ She slipped down and gave Emma a hug. ‘What on earth is the matter? You sounded like hell when you rang me. Why aren’t you in the office?’ Flora was one of Emma’s oldest friends. They had been at school together but after that their paths had diverged, Emma to university and City job, Flora to a career in alternative medicine which had led her to study all over the world before she returned to set up a practice in London.

Emma was fighting back tears, again. ‘I’ve resigned. It looks as though Piers and I are splitting up. I’m moving to the country.’

Flora stared at her for a brief moment, shocked into silence. Then she smiled. ‘So? Why on earth are you crying? That’s the best news I’ve heard in years.’ She hoisted herself back onto her stool. ‘Sweetheart, I know Piers is a dish and I know you thought it was forever, but you and he could never have hit it off for long. You’re too different. He’s a corporate man; if we are being honest here, a teeny bit stick-in-the-mud; even boring!’ She grabbed Emma’s hands and hauled her bodily up onto the stool next to her own. ‘I know he is sweet and kind and he worships you, but he is stifling you, Em. There’s a wonderful free woman in there,’ she prodded Emma’s chest, ‘just screaming to be released.’ She leaned forward. ‘Where are you going? I hope I can still come and see you often.’

Emma began to smile in spite of herself. She ordered a coffee from the girl behind the counter, then she looked back at Flora and shrugged. ‘You’re the first person who hasn’t told me I’m mad.’

‘Of course you’re not mad.’ Flora put her head to one side and scrutinised Emma’s face. ‘You’ve got a lot of friends, Em, people who really love you, but they are on the whole terribly conventional. At least the ones I’ve met are.’ She grimaced. ‘None of those colleagues of yours and Piers’s see the real you. I was beginning to be frightened that Piers had secretly murdered you and replaced you with a Stepford financial partner!’

Emma laughed out loud. ‘I needed to hear that. I’ve been so torn, Flora. I’ve been having awful nightmares about the whole thing. I can’t tell you how scared I’ve been. It’s such a big step. I’m not really sure why I’m doing it.’

‘Because you saw the cage closing?’

Emma stared at her thoughtfully. ‘Do you think that was it? I thought it was because I’ve fallen in love with a cottage up on the north Essex coast where I spent my childhood holidays.’

Flora shook her head. ‘We all fall in love with things and do nothing about it.’ She giggled. ‘Just as well, or Sean Bean would be in my cupboard at home right now, awaiting my pleasure! Em,’ she took a deep thoughtful sigh, ‘you’ve actually acted on this impulse of yours, so it must be important. Do you remember, when we were children, we had dreams? We played with the idea of who we would be one day. Everyone does. But when we grow up we forget those dreams. They are still there, but they seem unobtainable. Unrealistic. Best forgotten. You’ve remembered.’ She leaned forward and put her hand over Emma’s. ‘You’ve gone back to the scene of your childhood, a childhood when you were wildly happy, and you’ve been given another chance. There must be a reason for that. Don’t throw it away. Don’t look back. Go for it!’

Emma was silent for a moment. Outside a car squealed to a halt and they heard an angry exchange of voices from the road followed by the roar of an engine as it sped off again. Two people walked into the shop talking loudly and between them a child started to cry.

‘You will come and see me?’ Emma bit her lip.

‘Try and stop me.’ Flora looked at her watch. ‘Look, sweetheart, I’ve got to go. I’ve someone coming for a treatment in half an hour. Keep me informed, won’t you, and don’t you dare forget to give me your new address.’ She slipped off her stool and bent to gather up her bags. ‘Remember, there’s a reason this has happened, Em. Ring me. Keep me posted.’ She gave her a hug, blew a kiss and she was gone.

18

Wednesday night

Mike Sinclair woke suddenly and stared round his bedroom. His heart was thudding with fear and he was drenched with sweat. He sat up and reached for the alarm clock by the bed. It had fallen over and he scrabbled for it, disorientated. It was only half past eleven. He had been asleep for less than half an hour. With a groan he walked over to the curtains and threw them back. That huge yellow moon was still there, the light flooding across the garden and into the windows of the house. What had he been dreaming about? It was coming back to him slowly. It was a bear. He had seen a bear padding towards him up the lane. It was a black bear with long curved claws which scraped on the road and huge teeth through which it was slavering, its breath foul, its small red eyes fixed on his face. And he couldn’t move. He had not been able to move.

He took a deep breath, staring out of the window, aware suddenly that he was straining his eyes, looking for the bear in the black moon shadows of the garden.

‘Come on, Mike. It’s only a dream,’ he muttered to himself. He went back to the bed and sitting down reached for the switch on the lamp on the bedside table. His old Bible, the one given to him by his grandmother at his confirmation, lay next to it. He picked it up. But the prayer that was running through his mind was that old one: ‘From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties, and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!’ And why not? It said what had to be said. He clasped the Bible to his naked chest. ‘Our Father, which art in heaven.’ He stopped. A board had creaked on the landing outside his bedroom door. Then he heard something scraping; a rhythmic scrape and click, like the bear’s claws. He shook his head and putting down the Bible he strode towards the door. Grabbing the handle he swung it open and stared out into the passage. There was nothing there. ‘Hello?’ The sound of his voice was shockingly loud in the silence. It was answered by silence. He stepped forward and flicked on the hall light. It shone down on the bare polished boards, the red-fringed runner lying down the centre of the narrowest part of the passage beyond his door, the closed doors leading to unused bedrooms on either side of his and the main staircase with its old black oak banisters and broad polished handrail disappearing into the dark downstairs. He moved to the top of the stairs. ‘Is there anyone down there?’ His study door was open and he could see the moonlight streaming in across the hall.

Running down the stairs on bare feet, he headed for his study and stopped in the doorway, staring in. The long French windows onto the garden were wide open, revealing wisps of mist curling across the lawn towards the house.

‘Damn!’ He whispered under his breath. He reached for the light switch. If there were intruders in the house it was his own fault. He remembered pulling the doors closed and reaching automatically to turn the key. At that moment the phone had rung and he had turned away. The conversation with the archdeacon had taken twenty minutes. When it was over he had walked out of the room without checking the doors again.

There were a couple of old walking sticks leaning behind the door – relics of his predecessor’s arthritis. He took one up and holding it firmly in his hand he began to search the house. Dining room, living room, kitchen, cellar, four bedrooms, two attic rooms. All were empty and silent. By the time he had finished, every light in the house was blazing. There was no one there.

There would be no more sleep for a while. Swiftly he dressed in jeans and cotton shirt and let himself into the garden. The front gate creaked as he pushed it open, the nameplate showing up clearly in the moonlight. The Rec-ory. The ‘t’ had long gone, to his amusement, though he meant to repaint the black flaking letters one of these days. The road was darker than he expected, the trees blocking the moonlight. This was where the bear had stalked him in his dream. ‘Our Father which art in heaven,’ he murmured as he stepped into the darkness. ‘Hallowed be thy name.’ His eyes were growing used to the dark. The road was deserted, the trails of mist dissolving between the trees. There was no bear. Of course there was no bear.

He walked steadily down towards the town centre. There were people around there, drawn as he was by the moonlit night. A group of youths hung around outside the pub. He turned away from them and walked down towards the river. The tide was running, a silver stream between the broad glittering flanks of mud, wraiths of mist hanging, almost invisible, over the water. There were dozens of small boats scattered at anchor, lying at different angles where they had come to rest as the water seeped away. In a while they would refloat, one by one, lifting stickily from the mud, turning gently to lie to their anchors in neat lines, caressed by the incoming glittering tide. He walked slowly, hands in pockets, listening to the contented chattering of ducks roosting on the mud, and the distant whistles of a group of wading birds, almost out of sight, paddling about where the mud turned to silver as the water crept in. A group of people were clustered round a hot dog van parked at the kerb. He could smell the sausages and onions and relish as he approached and his mouth watered involuntarily. He groped in his pockets. No money. Pity, he would have liked a midnight snack. He wished the young people good evening as he passed and was rewarded with a sullen silence. Once he had strolled on he heard a quiet retort addressed to his retreating back. He sighed.

A car was driving slowly up behind him. He ignored it, stopping to stand and stare out across the river. It drew to a halt fifty yards in front of him and backed up until it was almost level. Then it stopped.

‘Mike?’ Judith leaned across from the driver’s seat and wound down the window. ‘I thought it was you.’

Damn!

That was the second time he had sworn this evening, this time very much under his breath. ‘Judith, what on earth are you doing here?’

‘I was going home after having dinner with Ollie Dent. It was so lovely I thought I’d come back by the scenic route.’ She opened the door and stepped out. Leaving the car she joined him on the grass, admiring the view. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’

He shook his head. ‘My early night came to nought, I’m afraid. Nightmares. I dreamed I was being chased by a bear.’

Judith laughed. ‘Very Shakespearean! You must have had cheese for supper. That gives one bad dreams. It’s a beautiful night to be sleepless, though.’ There was a hint of wistfulness in her voice which made Mike glance at her sideways. He knew nothing, he realised, about her private life; he didn’t think there was a man around, nor ever had been as long as he had known her, nor a woman, either. She lived alone. She taught at the school and her spare time was devoted to the church.

‘How was Ollie?’ he asked. Oliver Dent was at least eighty, so he doubted if her relationship with him was more than that of a friend, although one couldn’t tell even that these days. His question distracted them both from their thoughts. ‘He’s better. He’s got himself a cleaning lady and it’s cheered him up a lot. It’s a pity it’s Lyndsey Clark, but I suppose even she is better than nothing.’

‘Lyndsey Clark?’ He was watching the water lapping round a boat lying on the mud near them. ‘I don’t think I know her.’

‘No. You wouldn’t.’ The tone of Judith’s voice sharpened. ‘Going back to our conversation about witches the other day: she is one of them. The rector is unlikely to be on her list of close friends.’

‘She’s a witch?’ He turned and stared at her. ‘A real one?’

Judith nodded. She scowled. ‘The trouble is she’s clever. Oliver was telling me all about her. She was all set for a brilliant university career at Cambridge. But that didn’t suit her. No doubt they tried to instil some sense into her. So like the silly spoiled child she is at heart, she dropped out. I don’t know when she became a witch. Perhaps she was recruited by one of the local covens, but she makes no secret of it. She exudes evil from every pore!’ She fell silent for a moment, then she went on. ‘She lives by doing odd jobs. She’s got a lot of charm; she’s very attractive. The men all fall for her left right and centre.’ She tightened her lips distastefully. ‘So, beware, Mike, dear. If she casts a spell in your direction you could be lost.’

‘I’m intrigued.’ The boat was surrounded by water now. The tide was creeping silkily towards them across the mud. ‘You said before that there was witchcraft round here. Real witchcraft. It worries you in school.’

‘From time to time.’ Judith shivered. She was wearing a short-sleeved flower-print dress and flat strappy sandals. The warm night air was very still but a raft of small goosepimples showed on her upper arms for a moment. ‘It’s more a teenage thing. Satanism. But even my kids think it’s glamorous. Exciting. There are at least two covens round here, and the kids are in danger of being drawn in.’

‘And the church does not provide the glamour or the excitement they crave,’ Mike said thoughtfully.

‘Absolutely.’ Judith shivered again. ‘And why should it? It is not an entertainment. It is not meant to be fun.’

‘Indeed.’ He turned away to hide a wry grin.

‘Be careful, Mike.’ She glanced at him. ‘You’re very vulnerable, you know.’

‘Am I?’ He was genuinely astonished.

‘You had to ask me if there were witches round here.’ She glanced at him covertly. ‘You ought to know, Mike. One can feel it. One can feel the evil. On a night like this, when the moon is full and the mist creeps up the river, there is danger in the air. That man who came to you about the ghosts. He was genuinely afraid or he would not have come to speak to you.’

Mike glanced in spite of himself behind him towards the river. He was silent for a while, his brow furrowed. She was watching him as she let her words sink in.

Eventually he spoke. ‘Do you think I should speak to this Lyndsey person?’

‘No!’ She replied so sharply he took a step back. ‘No, Mike. I don’t want you going near her.’

‘You don’t think I’m strong enough to fight her evil?’ He sounded reproachful.

‘I’m sure you are.’ Judith was staring at a young couple wandering along the road towards them. They were arm in arm, every now and then stopping to devour one another’s mouths. She shuddered. ‘Don’t draw her attention, Mike. I’ll deal with her. My prayer circle will hold her before the Lord. We’ll contain her.’

Mike gave her a quick glance. Why, he wondered silently, did that thought worry him so much?

An hour later Judith, dressed in her cotton pyjamas and powder-blue dressing gown, went into the kitchen. Reaching for one of the pill bottles, she withdrew a single Warfarin tablet and swallowed it with a sip or two of water – something she had done every night since she had had the heart valve operation just before Mike arrived in the parish. Then she padded into her bedroom, where she knelt beside her bed and brought her hands together in prayer as she had done every night since she was a small child. The prayers lasted exactly fifteen minutes and by the end of them she was stiff and shivery, which was strange as the night was so warm. But her bedroom, unheated, even in winter, had always been cold. Climbing to her feet she took off the dressing gown, turned off the light and climbed into the narrow bed. Usually she slept at once, but tonight she was restless. She felt as if she had drunk too much coffee; her pulse was jumpy, her breathing irregular, her eyes refusing to close, searching the bedroom for shapes amongst the shadows cast by the streetlight near the garden gate.

I shall need you to help me, Goodwife Phillips.

The voice came from the figure in the corner of the room.

Judith shrank back against the pillows with a small yelp of fear. Staring, she tried to see him, but the shadows were black where the wardrobe stood between the window and the door.

We have to find every witch in the area. We have to do God’s work.

Terrified, Judith nodded. She wasn’t Goodwife Phillips. He couldn’t be speaking to her.

You enjoyed your work with me, and there is more to do, Mary!

‘I am not Mary!’ Judith found she had spoken out loud, her voice husky with terror but her indignation at the case of mistaken identity strong. ‘You’ve got the wrong person!’

She was shaking violently.

She lodges in your soul, Judith. You are kindred spirits you and she!

Was that a chuckle she could hear from the corner? As her eyes strained to see the owner of the voice a car turned into the street and the headlights shone for a moment through the thin curtain, lighting up the wall. There was no one there. Of course there was no one there. It was a dream. Desperately she squeezed her eyes shut and pulled her blankets up over her head.

By next morning she had forgotten the whole incident.

19

The huge moon was still lighting up the countryside like daylight as Lyndsey let herself out of her house. The row of three fisherman’s clapboard cottages was set in the shadow of the old maltings buildings on the quayside. The deep channel came close to the shore there beyond the dock, and the water was black and moved uneasily beneath the pull of the moon. There was no sound as she paused, glancing across the quay down river towards the broad estuary. Somewhere out there, beyond the strip of water and the shining mud, something old and evil hid, swathed in the cold sea mist. More and more often now she sensed it there waiting, and it terrified her. Was she the only person in the entire peninsula who felt it?

The whole world seemed to be asleep; the cottages on either side of her own were in darkness. Quietly she went back and wheeling her bicycle outside, she clicked the front door closed behind her. No one saw her as she set off along the quay and turned up the narrow road towards the centre of the village.

The site of the old church lay in the moonlight like a bright tapestry, a quilting of light and shadow, black and grey and deep velvet green. As she climbed over the wall she stood for a long time, listening. Somewhere a bird, disturbed by the moonlight, whistled plaintively and fell silent and she could hear the high-pitched squeak of bats as they ducked and dived across the grass.

Sure-footedly she made her way to the centre of the thicket where the north wall of the church had once stood, and kneeling on the dew-wet grass she pulled a night-light from her pocket. She lit the flame and steadied it with cupped hands, waiting for the wax to pool around the stubby wick. A pinch of dried herbs and a few grains of incense which hissed and spat, and quietly she began her prayer to the goddess, muttering under her breath, afraid in the still silence to speak out loud for fear of being overheard. Not that there was anyone to hear. The road was deserted, the houses, out of sight beyond the trees, were in darkness and behind her Liza’s cottage was empty and asleep.

When she had finished she stood for a long time, her senses alert, her eyes scanning the shadows. The place was quiet and still at peace.

Turning at last she walked back to the wall. In the lane she hesitated beside her bicycle, then, after a moment’s deep thought she made her way quietly towards the cottage. The For Sale sign had gone to be replaced with one which said Sold. It stood straight and proud, strapped to the gatepost at the end of the holly hedge throwing a black rectangular shadow across the path. Will Fortingale had told her who was buying it. A business woman from London who was so rich she didn’t need a mortgage. A weekender. Someone who would probably employ an interior designer and gardeners and change the place out of all recognition. Carefully she let herself into the garden. Out of the moonlight the shadows were very black. The house still seemed to be asleep. Behind the doors and curtainless staring windows she could sense its emptiness and suddenly she was afraid. She stood still, staring round, the tiny short hairs on the back of her neck bristling. ‘Liza?’ she whispered. ‘Liza, are you there?’

No one answered. The moon was sailing higher now, and smaller. In the apple tree by the gate a bird called out in alarm and she saw the small dark shape flit out of sight across the garden.

Making her way between the rose bushes with their burden of overblown, sweet-scented flower-heads, Lyndsey moved silently around the back of the house. The terrace had been extended about thirty years before by the Simpsons. Small moss-covered red bricks had been set in a herringbone design and around the edges of the terrace they had left a dozen or so large old flower pots which still boasted leggy untrimmed lavender and rosemary bushes. The weight of the roses had pulled down the pergola and their scent, rich and sweet in the night air, was almost cloying as she stepped off the terrace and onto the wet grass. She could feel the garden full of eyes, watching her. Small animals and birds, but also other creatures of the night, hidden invisible beings who had made the garden their own. They were worried too, as uncertain as she was about what would happen to this place. ‘I’ll take care of things, my darlings,’ she whispered. She felt them listening, felt them tense suddenly, their attention hers. ‘We don’t want anyone moving in here, do we? Don’t worry. I’ll get rid of her. You must help me.’

She glanced up as an owl hooted, and watching its swift silent traverse of the garden, she smiled. ‘It’ll be child’s play for us, won’t it. With Liza’s help.’ She paused, turning round. ‘You will help, Liza, won’t you? We don’t want any newcomer pushing her way in here. This is your place. Yours and mine.’

The Simpsons had lasted eighteen months, so she’d been told, before they moved out of the cottage. Holidaymakers came and went. They didn’t seem to bother Liza. After all, there were long periods when the cottage lay empty in between. And since Lyndsey had come back to the village there had been no holidaymakers at all. She had seen to that. She wanted the house empty because the garden was hers; the place, though with such care that no casual observer would see that anyone had been there, where she planted and tended and harvested her herbs.

She had lasted four terms at university. Hateful place. In town. Full of people and cars and noise. Her parents had washed their hands of her when she walked out, her father blustering and indignant, her mother crying. ‘Most people would give their right arm to go to Cambridge, Lyn! How can you do this to us? How?’

They had never understood her. Never cared about who she really was, about what was best for her, rather than for them. When Lucy Stebbings, her great-aunt, had died and left her the tiny terraced cottage in Mistley she had taken it as a sign that she was blessed and supported in her bid for total freedom. She moved in and earned a modest living doing odd jobs around the village to subsidise her real work and her passion: her exquisite, detailed paintings and her research into the occult use of herbs which would one day form the core of the witches’ herb Bible she was planning to write. She had never gone back to her parents’ home in Woodbridge. Had never seen her father again. Her mother came over occasionally with food parcels and clothes and clucked around. Lyndsey was barely civil to her. All she wanted was to be left alone.

She shook her head. What had got her thinking about her past suddenly? Liza, probably. Liza wasn’t an ancestor. She had had no children who had lived. But Sarah had, and Sarah was an ancestor. Sarah, who was Liza’s nursling, Liza’s friend and Liza’s pupil. Sarah who had ended her days in this cottage, the dower house where she had come to live in her old age and where she had carried on Liza’s work.

This cottage should have been Lyndsey’s by rights. That it had not belonged to anyone in her family for three hundred years made no difference to her at all. This land, this home, this place, was hers, her natural inheritance, and no one was going to steal it from her.

She shuddered. She could feel her everywhere, the stranger who was buying the house. She too had stood out here beyond the terrace. Her energies were strange. Uneasy. Afraid. She was bringing unhappiness and danger. Suddenly Lyndsey’s senses were screaming. This could not be allowed to happen. It would undo all the good she had worked for over the years; unleash everything that she had fought to contain. She was going to re-awaken the evil, allow it in, encourage that mist to drift in from the sea and engulf them all.

The spell was an easy one. First the circle drawn faintly in the grass, her whispered invocation to the guardians of the quarters, her arms raised to the goddess moon as she sailed serenely in the clear, midnight sky.

‘Let no one buy this house. Let no one live here. Let no one enter these doors who does not belong. Liza, mother of my mother’s race, listen to my prayer and help to guard your home. If anyone should move here, let their stay be short. Let the very doors and walls, ceilings and floors, the spiders, the rats and mice, let them all conspire to drive her out. Let the chimneys smoke and the mildew curl about the walls, let the rot take the boards and the worms the beams.’ She paused, pleased with the resonance of the words. Then suddenly she frowned. ‘But not so badly that it falls down, of course.’ She smiled to herself and shook her head. ‘Liza, this is still your home. Your house, your place. Keep this woman out. Haunt her! Scare her! Make her ill. Send her mad. Do not allow her to stay!’

She stared in silence at the moon, feeling its power touching her, feeling her own hatred. Then she frowned. The moon was still a fraction off the full. Perhaps she should return tomorrow when she was at her maximum power and repeat the spell. What had Will told her the woman’s name was? Emma. That was it. Emma Dickson. She raised her arms again. ‘This house will never be yours, Emma Dickson; you will not thrive here. Don’t darken its doors. Don’t cross its threshold. Don’t touch this garden, which is sacred to Liza’s memory.’ She felt in the pocket of her jeans. Yes it was still there, the short length of cord she carried with her in case she should have to make a binding spell. Holding it up in both hands, she began to knot it. ‘A knot to bind my spell. A knot to keep it well. A knot to hold at bay, the danger that comes by day.’ Three knots. The triple seal. Scrabbling with her fingers in the grass at the centre of the circle, she managed to scrape a small hole into which she tucked the cord. She covered it and rearranged the grass. It was done. If Emma Dickson ever moved into this house, she would regret it for the rest of her days.

Part Two

20

End of September

Unable to sleep, Mike had walked out into the icy dawn and was looking across the river. He could see nothing. The previous night’s mist had settled into thick fog, blanketing a clammy, viscous tide as it licked towards him across the mud. The silence was intense, heavy and cloying, beating against his eardrums as he narrowed his eyes, trying to see the outline of the old boat lying on the saltings, her ribs bare, her keel rotted and broken.

The atmosphere was eerie and disorientating and he found himself suddenly catching his breath, overwhelmed with fear that there was something out there, hiding just off the shore out of sight. Somewhere across the water he heard the lonely whistle of a bird and he found himself turning round and round, unable now even to see the road, the grass at his feet, the water’s edge; totally lost.

He pulled his hands out of his pockets and held them out in front of him, grasping at the air, feeling the icy droplets of fog condensing on his skin. Whatever was out there was evil beyond measure and it was coming closer. He wanted to turn and run, but he seemed incapable of moving. His breath was growing constricted and it was only then that he realised he had been so paralysed with fear that he had been unable to pray.

‘Dear Lord, Jesus Christ, be with me.’

His words were muffled by the fog, but he felt comforted.

There was something terribly wrong in the town and others were feeling it too. He frowned. Several times now he had caught sight of Bill staring out towards the river, that look of worried preoccupation on his face as though he were expecting something awful to emerge from the quiet, muddy water. And the atmosphere had been mentioned at the PCC meeting only the night before. Someone had vandalised the church hall, breaking the windows, spraying graffiti on the walls. Telling him about it, Donald James had shaken his head mournfully. Too many things were going wrong. The crime rate in the whole area was soaring. The head teacher at the school was complaining that the children were becoming moody and uncontrollable, joking wryly about it, wondering if it was something in the water. Mike narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the mist. Was there something in the water? Not in the sense the teacher had meant, of course, but something else. Something infinitely more sinister.

It was growing lighter. And suddenly the terrible sense of impending doom seemed to have withdrawn. Suddenly he could see again. The fog was thinning and towards the east he could see a flush of red.

As the sun began to rise through the mist, it was the colour of blood.

21

The house was very quiet. Looking round the small, low-ceilinged living room, Emma added two items to her shopping list: extra-soft cushions for the little sofa she had bought from Peter Jones before she left London, and yet another lamp. In spite of the radiant September sunshine outside, the room was dark. The corners never reflected the light. Shadows seemed to hang there whatever she did to rearrange the lamps she had brought with her.

It was a week since she had moved in, just over six since she had first seen the cottage. In that time the sale had gone through without a hitch, her resignation had been accepted by David Spencer – if reluctantly, and only after her promise that she would continue to supply him from time to time with reports and summaries, that she would stay in Internet touch, and that if or when she changed her mind, she would ring him immediately. Last but not least, she had on that last terrible, miserable day, removed all her possessions, including Max and Min, from what was now Piers’s flat.

The cats had at first been astonished and nervous at finding themselves the owners of an entire house and a three-acre area of ground. But the fear was slowly wearing off and now they were intrigued, anxious to explore. She had only let them out for the first time yesterday, all eight paws duly buttered, and they had proceeded cautiously out onto the terrace, sitting close together, the swagger and bravado they had displayed when looking out of the windows all gone. She had watched them fondly, at first afraid they might run away and disappear. She needn’t have worried. The first sound of a car in the lane had them bolting back into the kitchen and up the stairs. But it was only minutes after that they were creeping downstairs again, their eagerness to explore and their excitement outweighing their caution.

The furnishing in the house was as yet sparse. Peggy and Dan had come up to see her only three days before, bringing with them a small antique pine table and four chairs for the dining room – soon to be linked to the kitchen by the removal of the lathe and plaster between the studwork – and the oak side-table and the pair of Victorian velvet granny chairs had come from them as well. Upstairs, the bed was new. The Victorian chest of drawers had been her grandmother’s, the oak coffer had been Peggy’s. But still it didn’t feel like home. Thankfully she had not heard the voice again.

She wandered outside. A robin was singing its thready, wistful, autumn song from the collapsed pergola halfway down the garden. That would have to be mended, as would so much of the fencing, the trellises, the gate. The list of work to be done out here was endless, the work to do on the house equally so. She stood still, feeling the sun on her face, breathing in the soft, slightly salty air. She could see down to the widening estuary from her bedroom window and already recognised the fresh cold smell of the mud as the tide crept out leaving the broad dark grey glitter of the river margins exposed.

She perched on the wall for a few moments to get her breath back after her strenuous morning’s work on the house. But stopping for too long was dangerous. It was then that the doubts crept in. Her happiness, her sense of absolute rightness, her triumph at finding herself here was not enough all the time, to blot out the worry at what she had done. She had turned her back on a first-class career. She had moved out of the home she loved with the man she adored, and she had spent without a thought a good chunk of her savings and for what? A dream. A fantasy. Even the prospect of doing a bit of freelance work for David didn’t entirely comfort her. The income she made from that would never be huge. She glanced up at the window of the back bedroom where her computer sat on a wooden table. Sitting at it she could look out over the garden. That would be her office, if and when she got round to organising it.

Min landed on her lap with a small chirrup of greeting and she bent and kissed the cat’s dark head. ‘You like it here, don’t you, darling,’ she whispered. She sighed.

She longed to ring Piers, if only to hear his voice. Glancing back at the kitchen door she could see the phone from here. It was blue, to match the Aga which would be fitted next week. No. What was the point? He would see through her, sense her loneliness and she would rather die than admit she might have made a mistake.

Standing up, she set the cat down on the moss-covered wall and began to walk down the garden path. ‘You coming?’ She turned and clicked her fingers at Min, who cautiously jumped down and followed her, sniffing at the grass. As Emma watched, the cat paused and began to paw at a bare patch of earth, patting, sniffing, and leaping back, her hair on end.

‘What is it, Min? Be careful.’ Emma went over to see what she had found.

Lying there, partially exposed, was a knotted length of muddy red cord. Emma picked it up with a frown. She examined it closely. There was something unpleasant about it, although she wasn’t quite sure what. ‘It’s only a piece of string, Min. Here, do you want a game?’ She dangled it in front of the cat invitingly. Min backed away and spat.

Emma jumped. ‘Sorry! I thought you’d like to play.’

But already Min was trotting back towards the terrace. There, she sat down and began to wash her face. That was enough exploration for one day.

Emma moved on, pushing the string absent-mindedly into her pocket.

The lawn was a matted tangle of knee-high grasses and wild flowers. Two old apple trees, laden with small hard green fruit, stood one on either side of the path and once-symmetrical beds of roses featured beyond them where the pergola had collapsed beneath its riot of blown and dying flowers.

She paused, suddenly uncomfortable. Each time she walked down the garden she stopped here and without quite knowing why, looked round, glancing over her shoulder. She shivered and hurried on. Beyond lay the gate into the herb garden. Beds of herbs, woody and untrimmed, lay around an old boarded barn and behind it there was a poly-tunnel, torn and mildewed, where the young plants had been raised. She loved the barn. It had obviously been the centre of activities when the place was a business and boasted water and electricity that worked, two benches, shelves of pots and broken tools, labels, jam jars, all the stuff which she assumed had not been worth saving.

Two sides of the gardens were enclosed by an old brick wall, some eight feet high. On the third side where she had come in, most of the wall was hidden beneath ivy and wisteria and once-trimmed espaliered pear trees. The shelter the walls gave from the wind created a wonderful fragrant haven. This had once been, she understood, one of the kitchen gardens for the manor house up the road. On the fourth side of the herb garden the wall had almost gone completely, to be replaced by a high untrimmed hedge. Beyond that lay the two-acre paddock – wind-sewn with thistles and ragwort. Wandering between the beds, she snapped off a piece of rosemary and rubbed it between her fingers. Next spring would be the time to start some sort of project here. Until then she would spend her energies on the house itself and on finding her way around the district. Another spontaneous wave of out and out happiness swept over her. At whatever cost, she knew it was right to have come.

When she returned to the kitchen it was with a posy of herbs and roses which she put into a glass and carried through into the living room. Frowning, she glanced round. It was still too dark, even with all the lights on. And there was a strange feeling in the room, as though someone had just walked out of it. She frowned, looking out of the window, but the front garden was empty, the gate closed. There was no one there. She tried to push the sensation aside. Perhaps if she moved the table-lamp closer to the chair and threw another log on the fire the room would cheer up a bit.

It was as she was standing there, at the window, that she became conscious suddenly of the piece of red cord in her pocket, nestling against her hip. It felt hot. Unpleasant. With an exclamation of disgust she pulled it out and stared at it, frowning. What on earth was it? She glanced round for Min. The cat had spat at it. Why? She walked over to the fire. Whatever it was, there was only one place for it. As she threw it onto the smouldering logs, the flames hissed and flared almost angrily. In seconds they had devoured it totally. Suddenly the room seemed lighter.

When the phone rang that evening, she was standing at the sink, washing earth from her hands. She had been weeding the old flower pots on the terrace, dragging them into new positions, working out where a garden table and chairs would go.

‘Em?’ Piers’s voice rang in her ear. ‘Just checking to see how you’re getting on.’

She closed her eyes, fighting the pang of anguish his voice provoked. ‘I’m fine. Really happy.’ She realised that there were sudden tears trickling down her cheeks. ‘You will come down and visit us one day, won’t you?’ She took a deep breath, steadying her voice with difficulty.

Their parting had been so hard. Nothing had been said to emphasise that this was the end of their relationship, but what else could it be? Piers had not relented. He had helped her pack up sadly, resigned to her going. He had helped her load the cat baskets into the seat beside her, he had kissed her goodbye and waved as she drove away and then – nothing.

She had waited and waited for him to ring, her pride preventing her from being the first to pick up the phone in case she cried.

‘The cats are missing you, Piers.’

‘Just the cats?’

She couldn’t tell if he was smiling or irritated.

‘Not just the cats. Me, too.’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘I’m missing you lots, too. No one’s scratching the sofa any more.’

She gave a wistful chuckle. ‘You know I tried to stop doing that.’

There was a fractional pause. ‘You are sure you’re OK?’

‘Quite sure. Peggy and Dan are coming down at the weekend with another load of stuff from Waitrose. They seem to think I’m going to starve. Which is silly. There are a couple of lovely food shops here.’

She stood staring out of the kitchen window for a long time after he had rung off. She felt bereft.

Max jumped up onto the window sill beside her and she fondled his chin. ‘He said he’d come,’ she whispered. ‘But I don’t think he will.’

The nights were colder now as late summer pitched into autumn and lately they had been very foggy. She switched on an electric fire in her bedroom. Central heating would be necessary at some point soon. She must find a good local man to work on the cottage. The cats were both asleep on her bed and she had locked the doors downstairs. Time enough for night-time excursions when they had grown used to the place and found their way around and she had found someone to put in a cat flap.

Clutching her dressing gown around her, she tiptoed down the landing into the bathroom. It was irredeemably cold, with cracked linoleum on the floor and chipped white enamel fittings. The hot water however came from an electric immersion heater in the linen cupboard which blessedly and unexpectedly worked with enormous enthusiasm. She ran a bath and added some shower gel beneath the taps. Carpet, bathroom fittings, shower, hot towel rail – they were all on her list.

She rubbed steam off the mirror with the corner of a towel and peered at her face. It looked grubby: dust and earth had transferred from hands to nose, hair, eyes, and she was grey with fatigue. She frowned. That did not look like the face of someone living out their dream. She peered closer. For a moment it had not looked like her face at all. Frightened, she glanced behind her. But of course there was no one there.

Exhausted, she slept the moment her head touched the pillow, one cat at her feet, the other in the crook of her elbow. In the bathroom the steam slowly cleared. As the temperature dropped one by one the old oak floorboards creaked, settling into place.

Quietly, Min extricated herself from Emma’s sleeping arms and, jumping from the bed to the window sill, sat staring down into the dark garden.

22

The dream was there lying in wait for her. One moment she was drifting in and out of consciousness as she tried to get comfortable on the new unaccustomed mattress, still missing the solid reassuring form of Piers beside her, and the next she was standing, dressed in a long gown and embroidered shawl, in a strange room, by a heavy oak table staring at an open window where someone had called her name.

‘Mistress Sarah! Hurry!’ The figure at the window looked surreptitiously over his shoulder, clearly afraid. ‘Hopkins and his madmen have gone for Liza. You’ve got to come!’

She felt her stomach turn over with fear.

It was Hal. His father Tom managed the Bennetts’ farm. She hurried to the door. ‘Hal? Where are you?’

But he had already run away.

Her breath came in short gasps; her mouth was dry with terror. It was only when she could see the thatched roof of the cottage that she slowed down and began to think. Hopkins was a dangerous man. She knew how he worked, setting neighbour against neighbour, encouraging spite, subtly enflaming suspicion and engendering hatred. Anyone who crossed him or questioned his methods was liable to be arrested. Everyone despised him, but with the country at war with itself and everyone afraid, and with him claiming to have Parliament’s authority for what he did, there was no one to gainsay him. No one!

Her heart hammering under her ribs, she climbed awkwardly over the fence and tiptoed down the line of the hedge towards the back of the cottage. She could hear shouting. Men and women. They must have come and found Liza somewhere in the garden. Oh please God, let her be all right. There was a rousing cheer. She crept closer. She couldn’t see round the corner of the wall. Keeping out of the sight of the windows as best she could, she ran towards the cottage and edged carefully along under cover of the tall hollyhocks, then carefully she peered round. She could see them now, a crowd of men and women in the lane. They were bundling something – someone – into a cart. There was another cheer and they were gone. She could hear the horse’s hooves on the mud and stones of the lane and then the laughter and shouting of the crowd who followed behind.

‘Wait!’ she shouted. No sound came from her mouth. For a moment she found she couldn’t move, then she was running towards the gate. On the path she stopped suddenly, looking down. The old cat lay there, its body broken and bloody, its eyes still open as it stared up at the sky. ‘Oh no!’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Liza, no.’ She crept down the path into the cottage and stared round. The room was empty. Where was the other cat? Suddenly it was terribly important that she find him. ‘Blackie? Blackie, where are you?’

She glanced up the stairs. ‘Blackie. Are you there?’

The cat had crawled upstairs to die. It gazed at her from swiftly dimming eyes, its ribs broken, stomach and spleen ruptured, its face smashed, all from the boot of one man. As she knelt beside it and put a gentle hand on its head the pain and fear were already passing. In a minute it was dead.

She looked round, sobbing. ‘Liza?’ The word was soundless on her lips. ‘Liza, why didn’t you hide from them?’

Sweet Jesus. She could feel it. She could hear it in the echoes. Evil. Terror. Death.

‘Liza!’ She was screaming now as she ran down the stairs. ‘Liza, come back!’

Her sorrow and fear turning to anger, she ran towards the gate. There was no sign now of the rabble in the lane. The dust was settling. Nearby a thrush hopped out of the hedge, a snail in its beak, looking for its usual anvil. The stone had been pushed to one side by the scrabbling of a dozen pairs of feet but the bird spotted it at once and began to hammer the shell in quick brutal thumps as she watched.

Sobbing, she made her way home.

‘Papa?’ There was no answer. ‘Papa? Where are you?’ Her voice echoed down the oak-panelled corridor.

He was in the great hall, speaking to his steward. ‘What is it, Sarah?’ Anthony Bennett turned with a frown. His expression softened as he saw his only daughter.

‘They have taken Liza. The witchfinder and his rabble have taken Liza, Papa. You have to do something!’ She saw her father’s steward scowl. John Pepper had worked for the Bennetts for as long as she could remember. She had never liked him.

‘It was only a matter of time, mistress. That old woman has cast the evil eye too often for my taste, or anyone else’s in the town.’

‘That’s not true!’ Sarah’s eyes blazed. ‘She has done nothing but good. I remember her making medicines for your family many a time, John Pepper!’

‘And my family died, mistress!’ The retort had an almost triumphant tone to it.

‘They died of marsh ague, not of a curse!’ She was indignant.

‘And who is to say that? Liza gave them medicines. Maybe they were poisoned.’

‘Enough!’ Anthony Bennett slammed the book he had been holding down onto the table. ‘Leave us please, John. We’ll continue our discussion later. Sarah, calm yourself. I fear there is nothing you can do. The law must take its course. I am sure justice will be done.’

‘Justice!’ Sarah stared at him, white-faced. ‘Where was the justice for the others? They had done nothing wrong.’

‘If that were true, my darling, they would not have been hanged.’ He held out his hand. ‘Come and sit by me and we will discuss it, see if there is something we can do.’

She was trembling. ‘He will hurt her, Papa. He will force a confession.’

Anthony Bennett frowned. ‘Liza is not entirely innocent of whatever charges have been laid against her, Sarah. You and I both know that. Her intentions may have been benign, but her methods have not always been Christian.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Have never been Christian, if we are honest! That is, sweet daughter, why your mother first dismissed her from our service. She decided Liza was not a fit nurse for you.’

Sarah’s face was burning with indignation. ‘But you brought her back, Papa, after Mama died. And she cared for me as her own child. She never harmed me –’

‘No. She never harmed any of us. She has been loyal and kind to the Bennett family, which is why I gave her the cottage, and for that reason we will support her and do what we can for her.’ He stood up and walked towards the window. His elbow resting against a carved wooden mullion, he stared down into the garden. ‘I will speak to our neighbour, Sir Harbottle, who may well end up the judge of the case,’ he said slowly. ‘Our friendship is severely strained however, as you know, as he is for Parliament and we are for the king. It is not a good time to seek favours.’ He turned back to her. ‘You must leave this to me, Sarah.’ His voice was suddenly stern. ‘Do not become involved.’ He knew his daughter. For a while, during her short-lived marriage to Robert Paxman, she had settled into blissfully demure matronhood, or so it had seemed to her father. He had sighed with relief. His daughter was safely settled, married to a good, wealthy man. Not gentry, as he would have wished – she had spurned the suitable men whom Anthony had produced for her inspection – but a decent burgess of Colchester who was strong, well-educated, successful and she adored him. The only blight on their five-year marriage had been the emptiness of the nursery. The cradle remained unused, to Robert and Sarah’s deep unhappiness, and when Robert had died of the pox Sarah was left wealthy, independent, and alone. Anthony sighed. This was the third time she had ridden over to see him in as many weeks. The loneliness was beginning to wear her down.

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